Tock was waiting.
That's what he did best—still as machinery, patient as a shadow—but something had changed in the last day. He moved more. Watched more. His head turned when the wind shifted, like he was listening for something beyond the walls of the garage.
So was she.
The whispers outside had quieted. No more passing gossip. No more idle knocks from neighbors. Renn hadn't come by in three days. And yesterday, for the first time in fifty years, a drone passed overhead.
Not one of the regular ones. Sleek. Silent. Silver-eyed.
Katra didn't need a warning. She felt it like an ache in her ribs.
They were being watched. Not just by someone—but by something that wanted Tock gone, caged, or worse. The garage had been her shelter since the world flatlined. Now, every bolt and beam inside felt like a mouth waiting to speak her secrets.
She had to move. They had to move.
But walking wouldn't do.
The tarp peeled back with a hiss of dust and stale air, the kind that tasted like forgotten years. Beneath it sat a long-silent car, matte with time. The body was a faded slate blue, the chrome dulled, the tires sunken, but it still looked fast—as if it remembered how to run.
Tock crouched beside it like a worshipper at an altar. His head tilted, listening to something only he could hear.
Katra rested her hand on the roof. "The Coldstart," she said, voice half-apology, half-pride.
Tock looked up. "Why that name?"
She smirked, wiped a line of dust from the hood. "Because starting her was always a fight. You'd crank and crank, and just when you gave up—she'd cough to life and act like you were the problem."
She circled the front, fingers dragging across the hood like she was remembering muscle memory more than metal. "Back at the shop, we called it a cold start when something sat too long and made you pay for it. This one? She made you earn every mile."
A pause. Then she added, drier:
"Also once ripped my sleeve into a fan belt and tried to eat me alive at 6 a.m., so… grudge might be mutual."
The jack creaked as she raised the front end, slipped under on her back, and gestured for Tock to hand her the drain pan. His movements were quiet but precise—learning fast, always watching.
"The oil's the first thing to go," she said. "Breaks down, gets sludgy. Stops doing what it's meant to."
She loosened the drain plug. A second later, a slow black stream poured out, thick as syrup.
"See that?" she said. "That's oil that's stayed too long in one place. Gets clingy. Holds heat it's not supposed to. Leaves burns behind if you're not careful."
She caught the flicker of Tock's head tilt again, the way he always listened with more than just ears.
"Some people think oil's just grease. But it remembers," she continued. "Every idle hour, every hot start, every road you didn't take—it clings to all of it. Makes the engine carry more than it has to."
She fell quiet for a moment, watching the dark pool form beneath the car. Then:
"Too many years like that… and even something built to run starts thinking maybe it shouldn't."
Tock took the new oil filter from the bench, crouched down, and slid under the car. Katra didn't stop him.
She stayed where she was, rag in hand, watching—really watching—for the first time. Not to correct him. Not to teach. Just to see if he remembered.
He reached up and twisted off the old filter by hand. It was still warm. He didn't need the band wrench she'd set aside, but he had placed it within reach anyway. Just in case.
Above him, oil still dripped in slow, tired threads from the drain plug. He waited. Five minutes. Maybe more, before replacing the drain plug. Patience wasn't something she'd taught him in words, but he'd learned it anyway. Rushing meant sludge. He knew that now.
She saw him rub a fingertip around the gasket of the new filter, then dab it with clean oil from the bottle—just enough to slick it. The way she'd shown him days ago. Makes it seal right and come off easy next time, she'd said. And he'd remembered.
He screwed the new one on, snug but not overtight. Smooth. No hesitation.
When he slid back out, wiping his hands on the same rag she'd used, he looked to her—not for approval, just to see if she'd seen.
She had.
There was a rhythm to this. And to him. Not mimicry, not programming. Something else. Something that felt… good. Familiar. Like breathing again after holding it too long.
He screwed the new one on, snug but not overtight. Smooth. No hesitation.
When he slid back out, wiping his hands on the same rag she'd used, he looked to her—not for approval, just to see if she'd seen.
She had.
Katra grabbed the old quart bottle from the bench, wiped the rim clean with a rag, and unscrewed the cap.
"Last step," she said, moving to the front of the car and popping the hood for the first time. "Filter's in, drain's empty—now we give her something to run on."
She unscrewed the oil cap on the valve cover, angled the bottle carefully, and poured. Slow, steady. No funnel. She didn't need one.
"Don't just dump it in," she said as she poured. "Let it breathe its way down. Takes a few quarts, and you check the dipstick between each. Always better to top off than overfill."
Tock watched her every move. She handed him the dipstick, pointed at the markings.
"Here's the sweet spot. Just under full. Oil expands when it heats. Overfill it, and you'll blow a gasket."
He nodded, wiping the stick, checking the level. Smooth motion. No wasted steps.
She recapped the bottle, wiped the neck clean and put the oil cap back on the valve cover. "Now it's ready to run."
She turned to set the bottle aside—then paused, noticing Tock still looking into the engine bay.
Not inspecting it. Not analyzing. Just… listening. Like the machine was trying to speak and he didn't want to interrupt.
She let the moment breathe, didn't press him, didn't fill the silence.
Instead, she followed his gaze to the reservoir.
"Level's low," she said quietly. "That usually means there's a leak."
Tock didn't look away. "How do you find it?"
"You squeeze." She pinched one of the radiator hoses, feeling for give. "Should feel firm, like there's pressure. If it's too soft? There's a crack. A place where the pressure escapes."
She guided his hand. He squeezed the hose carefully—gentler than she'd expected.
"Like that," she said. "Feel how it gives? That's not right."
Tock nodded, then carefully examined the connection. "There," he said, pointing to a small split near the clamp.
Katra leaned in, gave it a look, then nodded. "That's a pressure split. Small one. Hose is still good—just needs the clamp slid past the tear. That'll hold it. But…"
She reached for a utility knife from the tray and tapped it lightly against her palm.
"If that had been a cut—or if the hose was dry-rotted—you'd need to replace it. Proper grade, rated for heat and pressure. You can't just slap a patch on and hope for the best."
She paused, watching him absorb every word.
"You don't always need to buy new, though. If you've got bulk hose, you can cut what you need yourself. Cheaper. Smarter. Most people don't think about that. They just wait for it to fail and wonder why they're stranded."
Tock looked from the clamp to the knife, then back to her. He said nothing, but the way he catalogued the knowledge was almost reverent.
Katra smiled before she could stop herself. "You're getting good at this."
She meant the tools, but not just the tools.
Katra crouched at the front tire, ran her hand over the rubber. Cracked along the sidewall, but not bad enough to split. She pulled a worn penny from her pocket—the same one she kept near the register, back when there were still people around to buy things—and slid it into the tread, Lincoln's head facing down.
"Still touches his hair," she muttered. "That means we've got grip left."
She glanced at Tock, who was watching her intently.
"Old trick," she added, flicking the coin toward him. He caught it without fumbling. "If the tread covers the top of his head, you're good. If you can see his whole face, the tire's done. No traction. No grip. No mercy when you hit a corner too fast."
Tock turned the penny over in his hand, then knelt at the back tire and tested it himself.
"Still touches the hair," he said.
Katra nodded. "Then we're still holding on."
Inside the garage, the air felt different. Dustier. Like the building knew she was leaving.
Katra moved through it slowly, gathering what she could: a spare oil filter, a tire patch kit, the small socket set in the cracked red case, a paper map no one had touched in decades. A few tools with real weight, the kind that didn't spark or hum but solved things by hand. A flashlight. A fuse. A memory or two.
The Coldstart's trunk filled one compartment at a time. She worked with practiced movements, but slower than usual. The act of packing made it real. Every item a marker of departure.
She paused at the workbench and slid open the shallow drawer.
The old watch lay exactly where she'd left it, resting in a soft oil rag, unmoved for fifty years.
Except it had moved.
She stared at it for a long moment.
03:48.
She hadn't touched it. Hadn't wound it. There were no batteries left in the world it could've drawn from.
Same time the dashboard had ticked when he appeared.
The same minute.
She closed the drawer gently, like it might bite if she moved too fast.
It hadn't just been Tock's chest that shifted. For that one breath, the whole world turned again—and left her standing in it.
Tock waited at the doorway, backpack slung over his shoulder, unmoving but not still. There was a kind of charge in him now. Not energy—intention. She couldn't read his face, but she knew what it meant to brace for something uncertain.
Katra looked around the garage. At the stained floor. The wall where she'd scratched measurement notes. The drip pan that had caught fifty years of silence. She was leaving a version of herself here—one that had learned how to keep everything running without ever going anywhere.
She wasn't sure who she was outside this space. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
She zipped her pack slowly. Every tool she packed was something that could fix a machine.
None of them would help her with this.
But she still packed them. That was the rule. You bring what you trust. And he—whatever he was—was now part of that inventory.
She didn't understand him. She didn't have to. She had built things her whole life without fully knowing what they'd become until the last bolt was set. This felt like that.
He existed. Which meant he mattered. Which meant she had to protect him.
Even if it cost her everything else.
Far Across the Sea – The Veilwarden Watches
Veilwarden Sabine Rho stood at the center of a chamber suspended over the black water, the Archive Citadel silent but for the quiet hum of surveillance data flowing through its veins.
The world had stopped fifty years ago.
And she had made sure it stayed that way.
Every screen blinked in predictable rhythm. Women looping through the same paths, tethered machines humming in regulated sequence. Nothing new. Nothing strange. Nothing trying to heal.
Until one signal pulsed red.
She turned.
A feed from Requira's eastern edge. A vehicle moving—no escort, no registration, no tether.
She magnified it.
Combustion-based. Analog. Manual propulsion.
Leaving the city.
That wasn't just unauthorized. It was unthinkable.
And yet…
There was something in the passenger seat. A shape. A presence.
The shielding was dense. Too dense. She couldn't see the signature. Couldn't read its tether—because there wasn't one.
But she felt it.
That same impossible friction that had lanced through her systems the day the ripple began. Like trying to overwrite emotion. Like trying to bind a will that wasn't born of fragments, but of something whole.
Untethered. Undirected.
New.
Her eyes narrowed.
He was moving. And that meant he was becoming something she couldn't define.
And if she couldn't define it—she couldn't control it.
Sabine tapped the console once. Flagged the anomaly for full pursuit. Quietly. Carefully. No alerts. No broadcasts.
This would not be handled by drones.
She would watch. She would wait.
And when the time came, she would decide what had to be erased.