The silence in the office was a physical thing, a crushing weight that pressed down on all of them. Silas's face was a mask of incredulous fury. Valeria's was cold, her eyes narrowed to calculating slits. She was no longer looking at Ren as an asset; she was looking at him as a compromised system, a critical component that had suddenly become unstable.
"No," Silas said, his voice a low, dangerous hiss. He took a step forward, his hand dropping to the hilt of a wicked-looking blade at his belt. "Absolutely not. I signed on to survive, not to run a post-apocalyptic daycare. The kid is dead weight. She'll make noise, she'll slow us down, she'll eat our rations. It's a simple calculation, Ren. Her life, or ours."
Valeria didn't move, but her voice was as sharp and unyielding as her gaze. "He's right. This compromises the objective. Our probability of reaching the Sector 34 hub decreases by a significant margin. As the ranking officer, I cannot and will not approve an action that jeopardizes the survival of this unit."
They were logically, tactically, and pragmatically correct. Every survival instinct Ren had honed in the merciless streets of the outskirts screamed that they were right. Elara was a liability. A bad calculation.
But the image of her small, terrified face, the ghost of his sister's hand in his own—it was a new variable in his internal calculus, one that defied all logic. He had made his choice. An anchor was still better than the hollow emptiness of leaving her behind.
Ren didn't try to argue. He didn't appeal to their compassion. He simply met their hostility with a cold, unshakeable calm. He used the only leverage he had.
"Then we have a problem," he said, his voice quiet. He gave Elara's hand a gentle squeeze. "Because she is not a negotiation. She is a condition."
He looked from Silas's furious face to Valeria's stony one. "My ability is what got us through the relay chamber. It's what will get us through the sealed bulkheads between here and Sector 34. You need me to open the way. You need me to deal with the Aberrations you can't touch."
He let the truth of his indispensability settle in the room.
"So, here is the new calculation," he continued, his tone devoid of emotion. "She comes with me. If you want my help, you accept my condition. If the risk is unacceptable to you, then we part ways right now. No hard feelings."
He was calling their bluff. It was a terrifying gamble. If they walked, he would be left alone to protect a child in a collapsing world, his own chances of survival plummeting to near zero.
Silas's hand tightened on his knife. His eyes, full of a predator's fury, darted between Ren and Valeria, weighing the odds. He was an opportunist, and his best opportunity was still with this strange, fractured team. He could see the logic, and he hated it.
It was Valeria who broke the stalemate. She held his gaze for a long, unblinking moment. He could almost see the tactical probabilities shifting in her mind. Losing Ren: a near-certain failure state. Gaining Elara: a high-risk variable, but not a guaranteed one. Her duty to her mission—to survive and report—overrode her tactical objections.
"Fine," she bit out, the word sharp and brittle. She took a step toward him, her eyes like chips of ice. "She comes. But know this, strategist. The moment she becomes a direct threat to our survival—the moment her presence is the variable that will kill us—the calculation changes. I will do what is necessary. Are we clear?"
"Crystal," Ren replied without hesitation.
Valeria gave a stiff nod and turned away, beginning a sharp, efficient inventory of the ration packs. The argument was over. Ren had won.
Silas let out a breath, his hand falling away from his knife. He glared at Ren, his expression a mixture of resentment and a new, grudging respect. "You're a cold bastard, you know that?" he muttered, before turning to help Valeria with the supplies.
Ren looked down at Elara, who had been silent and still through the entire confrontation, her small body trembling. He knelt down and handed her one of the ration packs. She took it with fumbling fingers, her large, frightened eyes never leaving his. There was no gratitude in them, only a deep, profound fear. He was just another monster in her world full of them.
He had just traded a simple, efficient plan for a messy, complicated one. He had burdened them with a weakness, strained their fragile alliance to the breaking point, and made an enemy of his own cold logic, all for the ghost of a memory.
He hoped it wouldn't get them all killed.