Chapter 48: Rules of survival

Bunny set down the recoil spring in her hand, looking slightly apologetic. "I’m sorry."

"But I still don’t understand. Why didn’t anyone report it to the Federation military and request more people for the search?"

Brandon suddenly turned a deeply shadowed gaze on her—the kind of look that had passed through centuries of gunsmoke and artillery fire on cruel battlefields, and now stared across time at humans living in a peaceful paradise.

They had long felt that Bunny did not seem like someone from this era.

Many of her behaviors and ways of thinking were completely different from those of Martians.

She was like a pure, unblemished sheet of white paper.

"Bunny, to the people at the top, we are only tools."

High-grade tools, nothing more.

"Expending extra military resources to search a heavily contaminated radiation zone for one missing sentinel would be a waste."

Brandon moved behind her. His tall frame cast a shadow over her body. He took hold of her wrists with both hands.

The thin calluses formed by years of holding firearms scraped lightly across her skin, leaving faint pink marks.

Her head only reached his chest.

While patiently guiding her hands through the process of adapting different types of submachine guns, he explained the cold rules of this world.

"They will not search for Kai. They will simply send the next new sentinel without pause."

"In the eyes of the higher-ups, we are nothing more than quantifiable consumables."

When one dies, another takes his place.

The breeding chambers can keep accelerating the production of new consumables—just like the cows in a dairy farm that spend their entire lives giving birth and producing milk.

Warmth touched her chin. Brandon gently lifted her face with the pad of his thumb.

Complex emotions churned in his eyes.

"As for you, Bunny..."

Bunny felt completely at a loss. From her upward angle, the possessiveness in the man’s gaze was laid bare.

Brandon did not finish the sentence. Instead, he leaned closer.

A cool, clean scent of cedar softened by body heat pressed down, mingling with the gunpowder smell clinging to his training uniform and forming a strongly invasive presence.

The fragrance of cedar was cold and pure—like the air in a deep-winter mountain forest right after a snowfall. It carried the steady weight of wood, clear with a faint bitterness, neither sweet nor cloying.

She was the "tool" the military had sent to the District 616 to soothe these consumables.

Because their value was high, the military hoped this batch of high-value "human weapons" could remain in service a little longer.

Everyone understood this perfectly well.

Only Bunny—who had completed barely half of her guide training before being hastily packaged and shipped here—did not know.

They had already endured long enough.

Brandon’s breathing grew heavier. He cupped the back of her head and moved in as if to force a kiss.

Ever since Cyrus had intercepted him that day, he had still been craving the soft, full redness of her lips.

Bunny was terrified. She shoved him away hard.

"Stop it!"

She stumbled backward—only to crash heavily into another solid, scorching body.

She tilted her head up and met Illai’s scarlet eyes.

The world spun. She was lifted as easily as a doll and set onto the weapons bench cluttered with scattered parts.

"Why?"

The question was filled with open contempt, and also a clear note of grievance.

"Bunny... in your eyes, being a guide is only a job?"

She looked completely bewildered and tried to push some distance between them with her hands. "What else would it be?"

Brandon slid the recoil spring into the barrel, pulled the trigger, and produced a sharp, clean click—as though implying something.

"Bunny, how long have you been awakened as a guide?"

Pinned between the two of them, she did not understand why they were asking. The tension in her body made her unease obvious.

"Less than two months."

That still included the month she had spent on Terra.

"No wonder."

They seemed to understand something. The gazes they turned on her grew even hotter—more naked.

A guide who had never experienced a heat cycle naturally could not comprehend that another kind of forbidden bond existed between guides and sentinels.

But that was all right. Bunny would understand soon enough.

"Bunny, don’t treat this as just a job."

Otherwise, the only one who would suffer was herself.

Two low, enticing voices spoke from either side. Warm breath brushed her earlobes. At the same time, both of them pressed a kiss to her cheek.

"Remember—we need each other."

This delicate flower was destined to take root only in the fertile soil that belonged to them. No matter how fierce the wind or heavy the rain, they would give her nourishment, and she would bloom with the most brilliant petals upon this land.

Dense male hormones, tangled with the cedar and fir scents of their sentinel pheromones, invaded her mind and her senses without pause.

She could feel her own guide pheromones searching eagerly for theirs.

They even clung to the other party and refused to move.

In a panic, Bunny broke free of the two men’s encirclement, scrambling from one side of the weapons bench to the other like a monkey, and threw a desperate look of appeal toward Orion.

"Orion!"

He caught her at once. The scents of cedar and fir were instantly replaced by the clear, sweet fragrance of moss after rain.

He stroked her head in comfort, then carried her out of the shooting range.

"Brother, helping Bunny understand sooner isn’t necessarily a bad thing," Illai remarked lightly.

Sooner or later she would have to accept it—accept them, and accept the rules of survival in this world.

Orion glanced at his two troublesome youngsters, yet still stubbornly carried Bunny away.

Brandon slung an arm over Illai’s shoulder and teased, "Your brother’s going to spoil her rotten."

Illai blinked. "Spoiling Bunny... doesn’t seem like such a bad thing."

After all, they were all spoiling her.

***

At ten o’clock that night, Bunny sat staring blankly at the three dates recorded in the diary.

797

832

885

These were years of the New Calendar, corresponding exactly to the times of the three guides’ deaths.

Roughly every thirty-odd years.

The official information was extremely limited. One had died in a bathtub, soaked in bloody water, the fatal wound to the carotid artery. Another had been found in the radiation zone, the body chewed beyond recognition. The third had died in the guidance room, internal organs completely hollowed out.

She did not dare look at the crime-scene photographs—they were far too bloody.

After sorting through her thoughts for a while, everything still felt chaotic. How did any of this look like suicide?

Suddenly thirsty, she set down her pen and went to the refrigerator for a bottle of juice.

The furniture here had clearly been designed for sentinels’ height; she could not reach the top shelf at all.

Just as she was about to fetch a stool, an arm stretched over her head and easily took down the can of peach-flavored soda she wanted.

She tilted her face upward and met San’s teasing gaze.

He pulled the tab on the can. Just when she thought he was about to hand it to her, he tipped it back and drank it himself.

A wicked smile curved his lips. "Want some? Beg me."