2026-07-08 10:02:52Sarah showed up at Ciro's apartment at 2:00 PM wearing tight jeans and a low-cut sweater and her most supportive girlfriend smile. "Ready to go shopping baby? I cleared my whole afternoon to help you with your project."
Ciro grabbed his keys. "Actually I need camping gear. A lot of it."
Sarah's smile flickered for half a second.
"Camping gear? I thought you were building some kind of business inventory."
"It's all part of the same project," Ciro said and walked toward the door. "You coming?"
Sarah recovered fast and looped her arm through his. "Of course. I love camping. I know all the best brands and I can definitely help you with sorting."
Ciro smirked, almost with a glint of mockery and irritation in his eyes but Sarah was too blinded to see any of it.
They drove to Mountain Peak Outfitters, a massive sporting goods warehouse on the edge of town, and the moment they walked through the automatic doors Sarah started steering him toward the casual hiking section with the colorful daypacks and fashionable fleece jackets.
Ciro walked straight past her toward the back of the store where the serious expedition equipment lived in utilitarian gray and black packaging with technical specs printed in small font.
If he wanted to survive the extreme cold, he did just need warmth, he also needed equipments to be able to dig through snow. Equipments that people would fight for like their lives depended on it.
"Babe," Sarah called after him. "The nice stuff is over here."
Ciro started loading a cart with industrial-grade sleeping bags rated for negative forty degrees.
Then expedition tents designed for arctic conditions. Then portable stoves and fuel canisters and water filtration systems and climbing rope and ice axes and emergency blankets that came in bulk packs of fifty.
Sarah caught up to him and stared at the cart. "This is really heavy-duty gear. Are you planning some kind of mountain expedition?"
"Something like that." He didn't explain further. There was no need to, especially for a snake.
"How many people are going?"
Ciro grabbed another cart and started filling it with thermal base layers and insulated boots and tactical flashlights. "Just me."
Sarah's forehead creased but she kept smiling. "That's a lot of supplies for one person."
"I like to be prepared." Ten minutes later Natalia appeared at the end of the aisle wearing yoga pants and holding a water bottle like she'd just finished a workout. "Oh my god Ciro? Sarah?
What a crazy coincidence! I was just shopping for new running shoes.
Sarah's face lit up. "Natalia! Perfect timing. We're helping Ciro with his project. Come help us carry stuff."
Natalia's eyes swept over the two overflowing carts and her smile turned sharp and calculating. "Of course. What are friends for?"
For the next hour Sarah and Natalia pushed carts through the store while Ciro loaded them with fifteen thousand dollars worth of apocalypse survival gear.
They giggled and whispered to each other and acted like supportive helpful girlfriends securing their position in his life while he watched them work.
"Babe this is seriously a LOT of camping equipment," Sarah said as Ciro added a third tent to the pile. "Are you outfitting like an entire expedition team?"
"If you feel they are too heavy, you can drop them!' He almost sneered and she bolted frantically.
"Oh no, definitely not! It's so light weight that I feel you should add more!" There was irritation and disdain in her voice and Ciro caught in and ignored it.
In his past life, he would have mistaken the soft tone for love. But it was only a vines trying to manipulate him, one that he wasn't going to fall for in this life.
Natalia leaned close to Sarah and whispered loud enough for Ciro to hear. "He's definitely loaded. This is thousands of dollars of gear. Play it smart."
Sarah nodded and turned back to Ciro with adoring eyes. "Whatever you need baby I'm here to support you one hundred percent."
They rolled three fully loaded carts to the checkout counter and the cashier's eyes went wide. "Big trip planned?"
"You could say that," Ciro said and pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills.
The total came to fourteen thousand eight hundred and forty-seven dollars.
Ciro counted out the cash without hesitation and Sarah and Natalia exchanged excited glances behind his back like they'd just confirmed he was sitting on a fortune.
They loaded everything into Ciro's truck, boxes and bags piled so high they had to tie down the tailgate, and drove back to his apartment building. Ciro parked in the loading zone and turned to the two women. "Can you help me carry this down to the basement? I rented a storage unit for all my project supplies."
Sarah and Natalia looked at each other and some silent communication passed between them. Then Sarah smiled brightly. "Of course we'll help. That's what partners do."
They spent the next hour hauling heavy boxes down three flights of concrete stairs to the basement storage area.
The building was old and the stairs were narrow and Sarah kept complaining about breaking a nail while Natalia made jokes about getting her workout for the week.
But they kept smiling and acting supportive because they thought they were investing in their future access to Ciro's wealth.
Between trips Natalia whispered to Sarah in the stairwell. "If we play this right we could all get rich."
Sarah whispered back while adjusting a box of sleeping bags. "I'm working on it. He's starting to trust me. I'll find out exactly how much money he has and where it came from.
Ciro heard every word from one flight down because they weren't even trying to be quiet.
He smiled and kept walking.
After the last box was loaded into the storage unit Sarah collapsed dramatically on Ciro's couch upstairs. Her hair was messy and her makeup was smudged and she was breathing hard. "I am completely exhausted but I'm so glad I could help with your project baby." She looked up at him with wide earnest eyes. "What exactly are you building down there? It looks like you're preparing for the apocalypse or something."
Ciro handed her a glass of water. "Just preparing for the future."
Natalia stretched her arms over her head and her voice came out casual but calculated. "Well whatever it is you're obviously doing really well for yourself. Marco and I were actually talking last night and he has some incredible investment opportunities coming up. Real estate deals, crypto mining operations, stuff that could multiply your money really fast if you get in early." She smiled. "We'd love to bring you in as a partner. You know, help you grow your wealth."
Ciro nodded slowly. "I'll think about it."
"You should definitely meet Marco this weekend," Sarah added quickly. "He's really smart with money. He could help you manage everything properly."
"Maybe."
After they left Ciro waited ten minutes then went back down to the basement. The storage unit was packed floor to ceiling with boxes and equipment. He opened the VOID STORAGE interface and pointed at the pile.
STORE ALL?
Yes.
Everything dissolved into particles of light in thirty seconds. The unit sat completely empty like nothing had ever been there.
Ciro locked the door and went back upstairs.
His phone buzzed. The spyware app showed a new message there.
Countdown: 27 DAYS, 6 HOURS, 33 MINUTES
They were literally helping him stockpile survival gear while planning to rob him blind. Pathetic
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
84
I kept the paper in my hand while Gregory examined the security footage from the medical ward.The handwriting belonged to my father. I had seen it on birthday cards, school reports, shopping lists and the small notes he used to leave on the refrigerator whenever he travelled. Even after all these years, I could recognise the way he formed the letter C.The date was seventeen years old.“Who gave you this?” I asked Gregory.“He pushed it beneath the door himself. One of the guards collected it after we moved him into the observation room.”“Did he say anything?”“He asked me to make sure you read it before entering the old operating theatre.”I looked at Alexander. “Did you know about this note?”He studied the paper from a distance.“No.”“Look at it properly.”He took it from me, examined the writing and returned it.“I recognise the signature.”“From where?”“Documents your grandfather kept. Daniel used to sign the original research approvals.”“Then you should recognise the handwr
83
The console continued to display the warning while the audio file played its final seconds.There was a faint sound after my father’s voice, something like a door closing. Then the recording ended.I looked at Alexander. “You said the system preserves patterns. Can it preserve a memory that was never entered into its records?”“It can preserve information gathered from a subject’s responses.”“That wasn’t my question.”He rubbed his thumb against the edge of his sleeve. “A memory can be extracted without being stored as a separate file. The system may retain fragments during a transfer.”“Then how did it label this one unrecorded?”“Because it has no matching record in the archive.”Elias stepped closer to the console. “Could someone have placed it there recently?”Alexander studied the screen. “The file carries an old timestamp. Seventeen years ago.”Isabel gripped her husband’s arm. “That was the year they brought Natasha here.”I returned my attention to the medical-room feed. The
82
For one suspended second, none of us moved.The words on the monitor remained unchanged, glowing above the archive console as if the system expected us to accept them as a completed fact.ORIGINAL PATTERN RESTORED.FAMILY REUNION: IN PROGRESS.Then Gregory’s voice came through the phone again.“Supreme Regent, I need you to answer me. The man is standing beside Natasha’s bed. Evelyn has ordered him to step away, but he won’t listen.”I tightened my grip on the phone. “Has he touched her?”“No. He keeps speaking to her. She’s responding, but she looks frightened.”“Keep him away from her.”“We’re trying.”I turned towards Alexander. “What does the system mean by restored?”He looked at the screen, and for the first time since I had met him, the confidence in his expression seemed to fracture.“It means the pattern has been reassembled.”“Whose pattern?”“Your father’s.”“You said the original pattern had found its way back into the system. You didn’t say it had been restored into a per
81
“Ciro? Why have you left me here?”The voice came from beyond the far wall, weak and frightened, but there was something familiar about it that made Ciro turn before anyone else could react.He knew that voice.He had heard it in Natasha’s childhood memories, in the recordings Evelyn had refused to explain, and in the fragments of conversations recovered from Blackwood’s old files.It was the woman who had sung to Natasha in the white room.“Who is that?” Daniel asked.Ciro didn’t answer. He moved towards the open doorway, but Alexander immediately caught his arm.“Don’t go in there.”Ciro looked down at his hand.“Take your hand off me.”“You don’t understand what you’ve just released.”“I understand that there’s someone in there.”“Someone who was never supposed to leave the archive.”Ciro pulled his arm free. “You said the body was the only thing we needed to worry about. Then you told me the lower archive contained another pattern. Now there’s a woman calling my name. How many peo
80
“You promised me my body back.”The words came from the man inside the enclosure, but they seemed to strike Alexander Vale harder than any accusation Ciro had made. For the first time since stepping into the lower archive, Alexander looked uncertain. His eyes darted to the monitor, then to the silver ring resting beside it, as if he were searching for a command that could make the past obey him.Daniel seized the moment.“Give me the ring,” he said. “If the system is restarting alignment, I need to interrupt it before the connection reaches the upper chamber.”Alexander did not move.“Now!” Daniel shouted.The enclosure gave a deep metallic groan. A thin crack spread across the glass from the place where the man’s hand had pressed against it. Ciro moved closer despite Daniel’s warning, keeping the black case tucked against his side.“Alexander,” he said, “if you want me to believe you, help us stop this.”Alexander looked at him, and something in his expression shifted. It was not kin
79
Ciro had imagined finding his father alive more times than he cared to admit, usually during the years immediately after the accident when he was still young enough to believe that adults could make mistakes about death and that one day someone would arrive at their house with an explanation for everything. Those fantasies had disappeared as he grew older, replaced by the understanding that some questions never received answers, but standing inside the lower archive of Blackwood with two men carrying his father’s face had made him question whether he had ever understood anything at all.The man behind the glass was struggling to breathe.The man in the black suit stood in the corridor with his hands loosely clasped before him, looking at Ciro with an expression that might have been affection if it had not carried so much calculation.“Hello, son,” he repeated. “You’ve taken long enough.”Ciro did not answer immediately. He looked from the enclosure to the man in the corridor, studying
You may also like
My Wife Killed Me, Now I’m the Apocalypse Billionaire
Al waasi'ou3.4K viewsThe Tattooed Emperor: Reborn Before the Apocalypse
Achille703 viewsMy Ex-Wife Will Kneel Before Me
Lilypen 100 viewsMY WIFE KILLED OUR THREE CHILDREN. I WAS SENT TO DIE
Halimat61 viewsApocalypse System Reborn Of The Shadow King
Masked Sophie187 viewsGod Of War System : Apocalypse King
Amoy2.4K viewsNinety-Two Days Before the Ice
VINCENT 61 viewsThe Last Ten Days, The Apocalypse Countdown
Fitz Writes232 views