Chapter 4: I'll come with you

Ada's POV

On the way to the nearby farm, I went over the shopping list I had drawn up earlier. I had checked every item on it countless times, yet with the disaster looming ahead, I still felt a quiet unease pressing at my chest — a fear that I might have overlooked something.

Outside the car window, the skyline of high-rises gradually gave way to rolling hills. Before long, we pulled up in front of a farm.

I had called ahead, so the farmer was already waiting at the gate. He welcomed me warmly and led me on a tour, talking as he walked. A small stream wound its way through the orchard; cattle and sheep gathered along the bank, grazing with calm, unhurried focus — blissfully unaware of what was coming.

"This place might make a decent refuge when the world ends," I thought.

After the tour, I handed the farmer the list I had prepared:

Two thousand pounds of organic leafy greens; two thousand pounds of root vegetables, including potatoes; eight hundred crates of fresh fruit. Two hundred head of free-range cattle, pigs, and sheep, to be butchered, portioned, and vacuum-sealed. Three hundred chickens and three hundred ducks, vacuum-packed as well.

The farmer read through it several times, eyebrows raised. "Are you sure you need all of this?"

"Reyes Supply Company is responsible for catering to several partner firms throughout the holiday season," I said. "Can you manage cold-chain delivery of everything within two days?"

He pushed back his hat and smiled, a hint of pride in his expression. "I'd bet good money you won't find a more efficient farm in this city."

Since the farm's processing facility couldn't handle all the meat at once, the full order would be delivered to my storage unit in three separate shipments. I confirmed with the farmer — more than once — that every shipment was to be transported under full cold-chain conditions; otherwise, the farm would bear the shipping costs in full.

With the supply run wrapped up, I looked up at the sky. It had turned a deep, darkening grey. It was time to deal with the pendant.

St. John's Church sat on a low hillside beside the highway. I walked the damp, winding path to my mother's grave and set the freshly bought bouquet gently on the ground. Then I found a soft patch of earth nearby and dug a small, shallow hole with my bare hands.

I lowered the pendant carefully into the hole, keeping only the cord, which I tied around my wrist. Then I leaned back against the headstone and whispered her name.

"Valid biometric signature confirmed. Core component reclaimed."

"Beginner mission complete. Static unit unlocked. Internal time is absolutely frozen. Contents will remain in the state in which they were stored. Capacity: unlimited."

"Confirming highest-level authority: Ada Reyes. Enter the folded space?"

Even though the pendant itself was no longer on me, the mechanical prompt sounded in my mind once more. I pressed down the surge of curiosity and chose, again, not to enter the space — not yet.

I still had no idea what would happen to my physical body while I was inside. For safety's sake, it was better to wait until I was home before taking the next step.

I reached up and touched my bare neck, a little unsettled by the emptiness there. Then I leaned forward and rested my forehead against the cold stone.

"I'm going now, Mom," I said softly. There was so much more I wanted to say, but the words sat heavy in my chest. "I'll come back with the brothers next time."

"This time, I will protect them. We'll get through this — all of us, together."

By the time I got back to the apartment, it was nearly eight o'clock.

The lock Frank had smashed must have been replaced at some point. The moment I opened the door, the rich smell of frying bacon hit me. The kitchen light was on, and Leo was standing at the stove, spatula in hand.

His silhouette, lit from behind by the warm glow of the kitchen, looked almost unreal. For a moment, the image blurred — and I saw it again: that other version of him, from another life, walking steadily toward the horde of the dead so I could escape.

He heard the door and killed the flame, crossing the room in a few quick strides. His hands gripped my shoulders as he looked me over. "Ada! Are you all right? Ray told me everything — that miserable drunk actually had the nerve to come after you—"

I shrugged off my coat and tossed it aside, then stepped forward and hugged him. "Don't worry. I'm fine. He's sitting in a holding cell right now."

"This is on me. I thought that bastard had no way of finding your address." He pulled back, his jaw tight. "You can't keep living here. I'll find you somewhere else."

"I was just about to bring that up," I said, tilting my head back to look at him. "I've already found a new place. I'm planning to move in the next few days."

Leo looked surprised, but nodded without hesitation. "Good. That'll put both me and Ray at ease — just make sure you're staying safe on your own."

He turned back to the kitchen and began setting the still-steaming food on the table, waving me over with a flick of his hand.

Throughout dinner, he kept checking on me, interspersing it with a few curses aimed at Frank. Frank's sudden appearance had clearly shaken him. Only after he'd confirmed, several times over, that the man hadn't so much as touched me did he let out a long breath and settle back.

"Leo," I said, "did Ray mention what time he'd be getting in tonight?"

Leo thought for a moment, holding his plate. "Around one in the morning, I think. He said he'd call when he landed, and I'd go pick him up."

"I'll come with you. It's safer that way." The infected man being taken away outside Costco was still on my mind.

"No chance," Leo said, dismissing it without a second thought. "Little girls shouldn't be up that late. Besides, what could possibly happen to two grown men?"

Looking at how unconcerned he was, I knew I couldn't keep this from him any longer. My brothers needed to understand how serious things were — only then could the rest of my plan move forward.

I pressed my lips together and made up my mind.

"Leo," I said, "do you believe in zombies? The kind from the movies — dead things that come back to life. Because they're real. They're already here."

He stared at me for a moment after I finished, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and disbelief. It was obvious he thought I was pulling some kind of impulsive prank. So I told him everything — exactly what I had witnessed outside Costco that morning, from beginning to end.

When I finished, Leo frowned at me first. "Didn't we teach you to stay away from people acting strange? What if he'd lost control and hurt you?" Then he fell quiet, thinking. "But there's still no solid evidence that what you saw was actually a zombie. All of this could just be your own interpretation, couldn't it?"

His reaction was exactly what I'd expected. What ordinary person would believe, out of nowhere, that zombies were roaming the streets and eating people?

I turned the cord on my wrist between my fingers, trying to think of a way to convince him. My thumb grazed the hanging cord and something clicked.

"What if I could show Leo the space inside the pendant with his own eyes?"

My mother's keepsake turning out to be a piece of advanced technology was, if anything, harder to believe than a zombie outbreak. But if Leo could step inside the space with me, he would understand that what I needed him to believe wasn't just the end of the world, it was the impossible itself.

A pendant that contained infinite storage space had been hanging around my neck for over a decade. Next to that, a zombie virus seemed almost perfectly reasonable.

With that thought, I raised a hand to get Leo's attention and silently said the words:

"Ada Reyes. Confirm entry into the folded space."