Page 146 of The Atom Between Us

He tells me they’re going to wipe me. Not kill—wipe. Same difference, just with more paperwork. His face is blank, but I see the flicker of something behind his eyes.

“Is there anything you want me to remember?” he asks.

I stare at him, blank. He writes something in the margin, stands, and leaves.

I never see him again, but in every cycle after, the tapping follows me, like a heartbeat I can’t get rid of.

Cycle 67: We’re in the tunnels, both of us bleeding, both of us hunted. There’s a drone close behind, Authority insignia stenciled bright on the hull. Kang shoves me into an alcove, presses his hand over my mouth, and waits for the drone to pass. His palm is rough, warm. His heart pounds so hard I feel it in my own chest.

When the drone’s gone, he lets go and says, “Why do you always get yourself into these messes, Dee?”

It’s the first time he calls me that.

I punch him in the arm, just hard enough to leave a bruise. “You’re the one who always follows me.”

He grins, the way only he can, and says, “That’s the deal, isn’t it?”

I want to kiss him, but the memory ends there. It always ends there, the Authority edits slicing it off before I can get what I want.

Cycle 88: We’re fighting side by side, a breach team in the deadlands. The world outside is static and storm, visibility down to a meter. I’m armed with a makeshift spike, Kang with a battered Authority issue rifle. Every step, the Geiger counter ticks higher. I hear him mutter the numbers under his breath, voice low and steady.

We’re supposed to clear a safe path to the node, but the real mission is survival. Kang tells me to take the left, he’ll cover the right. I nod, knowing he’s lying—he always takes the lead, always wants to be the one that gets hit first.

I see the moment it happens: the drone’s infrared sighting, the flash of blue as the coilgun fires. I shove him out of the way, take the round in the shoulder. The pain is a distant memory, nothing compared to what the node does to me later, but it stings, and I yell at him for being an idiot.

He tears a strip from his uniform to bind my wound. He calls me “stubborn,” and the word tastes like love, even though he’ll never say it out loud.

I want to laugh, but the Authority edits again, and the memory glitches, jumps to the next.

Cycle 7: I’m in a hospital, clutching the edge of the bed, sweat slick on my forehead. Kang is there, holding my hand, his other arm looped tight around my shoulders. My vision is blurred, but I see the Authority white of the room, the machines, the sensors, the blue band on my wrist.

There’s a baby crying. I know it’s mine—ours—because the noise slices through every defense I have left. Kang looks at me, and there’s so much in his eyes I almost can’t hold it.

He kisses my hand, says, “You did it, Dee.” The nurse brings the baby, wraps her in a scratchy Authority blanket, hands her to me. She’s impossibly small, perfect.

The baby smells like milk and ozone and something new. I want to keep her forever, but as soon as I hold her, the memory shifts—the room goes cold, and someone in Authority blue wrenches her away from me. Kang shouts, but they hold him back. They tell me it’s for the good of the Zone, for the good of the project.

I scream, and the world resets.

Cycle 112: Kang and I are fugitives. Not just rebels—actual ghosts, living on the edges of the grid. We steal food, water, memories. We fake our own deaths three times, move camp every week. Sometimes, when it’s just us, he reads old books to me, scavenged from the ruins. He always picks the ones about stars, about navigation. He tells me, “If you ever forget, just look up.”

One night, he draws the constellations on my bare back, mapping the stars with the tip of his finger. I want it to last forever, but the Authority code is stronger than wishes. The next morning, they catch us. They always do.

Cycle 28: This time, I don’t remember him at all. He spends weeks trying to get through, visiting the garden, leaving blue flowers on the windowsill, but I just smile and ask his name every time. He never gets angry. Never gives up.

Eventually, I start to remember. Not everything, but enough. The blue flower behind my ear, the way he laughs when I insult his haircut, the way my heart jumps when he looks at me.

In every cycle, we find each other.

In every cycle, they take it away.

The memories accelerate now. The node is burning hotter, cycles running at near-infinite speed. Each time, Kang is there, somehow, even when he’s not supposed to be. Sometimes he’s the villain, the Authority tool sent to hunt me down. Sometimes he’s the hero, breaking me out of prison, shielding me from the worst of the violence. Sometimes he’s just a man, tired and lonely, sharing a rationed can of coffee with me in a bunker we both know won’t last the night.

I love him in every version. I hate him in some. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is the pattern: no matter what the Authority throws at us, no matter how many times they wipe me, we always find each other.

I feel the node melting down around me. The lights flicker and die, leaving only the emergency LEDs, red and angry and alive. My hands are fused to the terminal now, nerves shot, muscles locking in place. My nose is bleeding again, a hot trail down the back of my throat. I can’t breathe, but I don’t care.