The hiss of the transport doors opening sounded like a lung punctured.

  Christine stood in the doorway of the shuttle, blinking against the sudden, sharp clarity of the light. It wasn’t the soft, filtered sun of Earth. It was a clean, merciless white that cast no shadows.

  She stepped out onto a surface. It was a smooth, seamless metal grid that hummed beneath her boots.

  Christine stumbled forward, her legs heavy with the gravity of a new world. She looked up and gasped.

  They were inside a dome, but it wasn’t like the greenhouse structures she had imagined it would be. It was a cathedral of chrome and glass, sleek and terrifyingly advanced. The buildings twisted toward the roof like silver needles, their windows gleaming with data streams.

  Towering over it all, piercing the side of the dome itself, was a massive alien spire… obsidian, pulsing with blue-violet lights.

  "Attention," a voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "Processing initiated."

  The air hummed as a sea of small floating machines descended. They were small, spherical, and silent, moving with the terrifying coordination of a hive mind. Drones.

  They weren’t just guiding people; they were sorting them.

  To her left, Christine saw a drone clamp onto the shoulders of a man whose legs ended at the knee… smooth, healed stumps where shins should have been. The machine lifted him effortlessly, carrying him away gently, but like a parcel.

  Another drone hovered in front of a woman who was staring blankly at the sky, drool trailing from her lip. The drone scanned her, flashed amber, and guided her toward a long, low building that looked like a barracks.

  Then, a drone stopped in front of Christine. A single blue lens dilated.

  "Identify," it chirped.

  "Red..." Christine’s voice cracked. She swallowed the dryness in her throat. "Red Lando."

  A beam of blue light washed over her face, stinging her eyes.

  "Designation verified: Nurse. Medical Sector," the drone announced. "Follow."

  Christine followed. She didn’t have a choice.

  The drone led her through the silver corridors. It was beautiful in a cold, mathematical way. No trash. No dirt. No noise. Just the hum of electricity and the soft whoosh of pneumatic tubes carrying cargo overhead.

  They stopped at a tall, narrow tower. The drone floated up to a door that slid open at its approach.

  "Subject R-7," the drone said. "Quarters." And floated away.

  Christine stepped inside.

  The room was pristine. White walls, a sleeping pad that hovered slightly off the floor, and a large window that looked out not at the city, but through the dome.

  She could see the alien landscape outside… red dust, jagged rocks, and a sky that was a glowing purple. It was magnificent and terrifying.

  She turned away, needing something familiar. She saw a sink… a sleek, silver basin. Thirst hit her like a hammer.

  She walked over and swiped her hand under the faucet.

  Nothing.

  She tapped the metal. She gripped the spout. It was solid. Fused. A sculpture of a sink, printed by a machine that knew what a sink looked like but didn't know what it did.

  "Of course," she whispered, her voice dead in the acoustic foam of the room.

  She turned back to the room and saw it.

  A panel on the wall caught her eye - a reflective surface. A mirror.

  She hadn't seen herself since the transport. She hadn't wanted to. But now, alone in the silence, she couldn't look away.

  She stepped closer.

  The face looking back was hers, but it was... wrong.

  It was a rough draft of Christine. Her left eye was too wide, the lid stretched and unblinking, staring out of a socket that sat too high. Her nose had a subtle, impossible twist, like clay that had been pushed before it set.

  And her jaw... it hung slightly askew, pulling her mouth into a permanent, tragic grimace.

  She raised a trembling hand to her cheek. The reflection mimicked her, a disjointed puppet.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "Oh god," she breathed.

  She wasn't just tired. She wasn't just sick. She was hideous.

  The tears welled up, hot and stinging, but before they could fall, the door chimed.

  "Resident Red Lando," a drone’s voice cut through the room. "Attendance required. Education Sector. Immediate."

  Christine stared at the mirror for one second longer, memorizing the ruin of her face. Then she wiped her eyes, steeled her jaw, and turned to the door.

  "Coming," she rasped.

  The "school" was an amphitheater carved from the same white material as the rest of the city.

  There were no desks. Instead, hundreds of humans sat on tiered benches, each station equipped with a bottle of water, a packet of the gray nutrient paste, and a folded square of shimmering white silk.

  Christine sat near the back. She scanned the crowd.

  There were so few of them left. Maybe a thousand?

  The lights in the room shifted from harsh white to a soft, amber glow. A hush fell over the crowd.

  An alien glided onto the stage. It was an Avatar… tall, glowing, wearing a robe of woven light.

  "Welcome," the alien said. Its voice was smooth, translated perfectly into English. "You are the survivors of Terra."

  The crowd murmured. Terra?

  "You are what’s left of the technicians. The scientists. The healers," the alien continued. "This room is a place of learning. A partnership. We have three hundred severely damaged units in the Critical Care ward. They require biology to mend biology. We require your hands."

  It gestured to the ceiling, where a hologram of a new, massive structure appeared.

  "This facility is temporary. We are constructing a permanent habitat. Eden. But to reach Eden, you must first survive your home here in Terra."

  The alien stepped back. "To explain the... human condition... we present Dr Callum."

  A hum filled the stage. From the wings, a chrome chair floated into view.

  Christine sat up straighter, a jolt of recognition hitting her.

  It was him. The man from the floor of the transport ship. The one who had looked at her with terrified eyes as she propped him up with rolls of fabric because he had no arms to hold himself.

  But he wasn't that man anymore.

  He was strapped into a complex harness within a sleek, hovering pod, but he didn't look confined; he looked liberated. His sleeves were still pinned neatly at his shoulders, and his pant legs still lay flat against the seat, but the helplessness was gone.

  He steered the chair with a joystick operated by his chin, moving with a fluid, practiced grace that defied the awkwardness of his body. He banked the chair smoothly, spinning it to face the crowd and stopping with a little flourish.

  Christine stared, mesmerized. The aliens hadn't just saved him; they had given him wings.

  He looked striking. His dark, messy hair was clean, and his eyes, once filled with the panic of a man who couldn't feel his own limbs, now burned with intelligence and a fierce, undeniable hope. He looked happier than any human she had seen since the sky fell.

  "Hi everyone," Callum said. His voice was warm, amplified by a speaker on his collar, and his smile seemed to defy the gravity of the room. "I know. I look like a nugget. You can laugh. It’s okay."

  A ripple of nervous, shocked laughter went through the crowd.

  "I’m Dr. Callum Hartley," he said, his smile softening. "Formerly a Reproductive Endocrinologist. Currently... Chief Rolling Officer. And how do you like the name Terra? I find it fitting."

  He looked out at them, and his expression turned serious, but kind.

  "We are here because we are the ones who can fix things. As our friend said, we are the remaining scientists and teachers of humanity, and we have to be honest about what’s broken. We arrived damaged. The teleportation... it took its toll on us. And based on our initial scans, natural procreation is... unlikely. For all of us."

  A gasp went through the room. A heavy, collective sound of grief.

  "I know," Callum said gently. "It’s a heavy thing to carry. But it’s not the end. I have agreed to work with our shiny friends here on what I’m calling the Genesis Project."

  He gestured with his chin, and the hologram changed to show a DNA helix.

  "We are going to use science to find us a future. We are going to build the next generation, cell by cell if we have to. Plus, the aliens are learning our biology, learning how we can better mend and heal. We are going to save us."

  He paused, looking at each of them.

  "There are 1,302 of us left," he whispered. "But we are here. And as long as we’re here, we will keep our hope.”

  The hologram shifted again, showing an image of a sleek, silver device that looked like a laptop made of glass.

  "Now, this room is for learning. And for your first lesson," Callum said, lightening his tone, "The aliens have learned our language surprisingly quickly, and have created this computer-like device for us to connect with them. It’s an interface, and there are terminals in every unit. You can log your work, your thoughts, request supplies, and even check the resident directories and schedules. It’s our library. It’s new, but use it so it can grow."

  He grinned. "Class dismissed. Go eat your paste. It tastes like wet cardboard, but it keeps the lights on."

  Christine didn't walk back to her quarters; she ran.

  She burst into the unit labeled Subject R-7, ignoring the drone that tried to scan her entry.

  She went straight to the desk. The glass terminal hummed to life as she touched it.

  Interface Online.

  Her fingers trembled as she touched the directory list.

  SEARCH: RESIDENT LIST - TERRA DOME.

  The list scrolled. Hundreds of names.

  Abbott... Anderson...

  She scrolled down to the R section.

  Ramirez... Reed... Reynolds...

  She scanned the list, her finger hovering over the glass.

  Richardson... Roberts...

  No Reeves.

  She typed the name instead, her fingers stumbling over the alien keyboard.

  SEARCH: REEVES, NATHAN.

  The screen blinked.

  [NO MATCH FOUND]

  She stared at the words.

  "No," she whispered.

  She typed again, frantic.

  SEARCH: NATHAN, REEVES

  [NO MATCH FOUND]

  She typed his middle name. She typed his birthday. She typed every variation she could think of.

  [NO MATCH FOUND]

  [NO MATCH FOUND]

  [NO MATCH FOUND]

  The screen stared back at her, cold and blue.

  "He's gone," she choked out.

  The realization hit her like a hammer. She slumped over the desk, her forehead resting on the cool glass. She sobbed, a raw, ugly sound that she had been holding back.

  Chime.

  The door slid open.

  Christine flinched, spinning around.

  A drone hovered in the doorway uninvited. Its single blue eye fixed on her tear-streaked face.

  "Resident Red Lando," the drone chirped. "Dr Callum requests your presence. Medical Unit tour initiating in five minutes."

  It hovered there, waiting. Expectant.

  Christine looked at the drone. She looked at the screen that said NO MATCH.

  She took a shuddering breath. She wiped her face with her sleeve, smearing the tears across her distorted cheek.

  She stood up.

  She felt heavier. Darker. Like something inside her had solidified into stone.

  "Copy that," she whispered.

  She picked up the pieces of herself, locked them away behind the ruin of her face, and walked toward the drone.

  "Lead the way."

  Schedule Update: This is as far as I got with my bulk editing during the break. As I go back to work, the chapters will come a little slower, but I will post no less than once weekly!