Page 46 of A Mate For Matrix
Then Matrix closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I was,” K-Nine replied grimly. “The universe is full of surprises. And right now… we’re probably the biggest one.”
Chapter Eighteen
Thirty-one hours into the repairs, their systems were stabilizing and the engineering core had stopped hissing like an angry dragon and returned to a quiet, compliant hum.
Matrix sat cross-legged on the cold floor, his back pressed against an open panel, his hands resting uselessly in his lap. One of them still held a diagnostic tool he hadn’t used in almost ten minutes. The screen on the wall flickered with status updates, but his eyes were heavy, unfocused. His internal systems flagged mild fatigue and emotional overload. He dismissed both.
The soft sound of footsteps echoed through engineering. Light. Familiar.
He didn’t need to turn to know it was her.
Jana appeared beside him a moment later, crouched down in her usual way that made it seem like her body moved to music only she could hear. She held a steaming cup in one hand. Tea, he guessed. Or maybe soup.
“Figured you could use something warm,” she said softly.
He took it without a word and let the warmth seep into his palms before he set it down beside him. She didn’t press him to drink it.
Instead, she eased down onto the floor beside him and drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them like she was trying to hold herself together.
For a moment, they just sat in silence.
“How are you doing?” she asked finally.
Matrix exhaled slowly, tilting his head back against the panel. His voice was flat, almost hollow. “K-Nine told you.”
She nodded, her voice equally quiet. “I didn’t give him much of a choice.”
He swallowed, his throat tight. He hadn’t spoken it aloud yet—not really. Even in the quiet of his own mind, the truth sat like a lead weight.
Ninety-five percent.
That was the likelihood that K-Nine’s analysis was correct. Thirty-one hours of recalculations and quantum modeling had only strengthened K-Nine’s original hypothesis. They were nearly nine centuries in the future. An entire civilization—his civilization—had turned to dust. Planets would have been colonized and abandoned. Empires might have risen and fallen. Star systems renamed. Technology forgotten.
His family. His people. His world.
Gone.
“I should’ve died back there,” he said quietly. “A long time ago. Instead… I’m here. Out of time. Out of place.”
“But you aren’t alone,” Jana said. She just looked at him with wide, shimmering eyes that saw right through the armor he tried to wear. “We have each other—and K-Nine and the kittens. As long as we are together, we’ll be alright… won’t we?”
He closed his own eyes at the quiver of uncertainty in her voice. A flash of memory rose, unbidden—his mother’s laugh echoing through their house, his father crouching beside a flight console, teaching him how to calibrate for turbulence, the warmth of a home he’d never see again.
He felt her before he saw her—Jana’s hand gently resting on his knee.
When he opened his eyes, she was already looking at him. Her gaze didn’t falter. She didn’t smile out of pity, but with something deeper—softer. Fiercely tender. Her lips trembled at the corners, her eyes shining with tears she hadn’t let fall yet.
And in that moment, Matrix’s chest cracked open. He wasn’t the only one who had lost everything.
He reached out with slow, aching arms, and she moved instantly—climbing onto his lap like it was the only place she belonged. She curled against him, arms around his neck, forehead tucked beneath his chin.
He held her as if he could hold the pieces of himself together through her.
For several long, silent minutes, there was no war against Elaine Brim’s Crawlers, no repairs, and no time-rifted universe spinning too fast around them.
Just her heartbeat. His breath. The warmth of her pressed against the cold reality of everything he’d lost.
