Apocalypse Ground Zero: Refusing To Leave Home

I woke up expecting the house to feel different.

That was stupid.

Houses didn’t develop personalities overnight just because two men had accidentally planned an apocalypse compound around one. Still, I stood at the top of the stairs for several seconds and listened for the crackle of radios, low voices, or someone discussing supply routes beside my television.

Only... there was nothing.

The living room looked almost normal again. The maps had disappeared from the coffee table, the snack bowls had been returned to their proper places, and the cabinet beside the bookshelves stood open and mostly empty.

Lingyun lay stretched across the sectional with one arm over his eyes. He had somehow turned "resting" into occupying enough couch for three people, although the fresh bandages around his ribs suggested the healer had won at least one argument before leaving the property.

Yuche sat near his feet with a mug of coffee in one hand and the other one resting against the metal frame beneath the couch. Judging by the faint vibration under the floor, he was still reinforcing the foundation without ruining anything visible.

But Zhenlan and Chenghai weren’t in the room.

I walked toward the empty cabinet and stared inside. The radios, notebooks, batteries, and rolled maps were gone. My movies had been returned to the shelves, including several that had been shoved into the wrong cases because apparently no one respected organization after the apocalypse.

Lingyun lifted his arm enough to look at me. "You’re awake."

"That usually happens after sleeping."

"I was beginning to worry."

"You saw me go upstairs."

"A lot can happen on stairs."

I ignored him and pointed toward the cabinet. "Where did everything go?"

"Outside."

That answer came from Chenghai as he entered through the side hall carrying one of the smaller boxes that had been sitting beneath the radio equipment. Zhenlan followed him with dust on his sleeves and a coil of wire over one shoulder.

I looked past them toward the sealed hallway like I had just developed Xray vision and could see through walls. News flash. I hadn’t. "Outside where?" I asked, cocking my head to the side.

"The communications equipment is in the eastern building now," Chenghai said. He set the box near the door instead of bringing it farther into the room. "The workers already had a smaller receiver there. We moved the main unit and connected it to their system."

"You did all that this morning?" I continued, narrowing my eyes. Just how long had I slept?

"It wasn’t difficult."

That meant it had probably involved moving half a building before breakfast.

Zhenlan placed the wire beside the box. "The range is weaker from there, but they can improve it without bringing the equipment back into the mansion."

I glanced between them. Neither man looked upset, and neither seemed to be waiting for me to approve of what they had done. Did they get reborn again? Was that a thing? Either that, or they got a lobotomy.

"What about the maps?"

"The original property surveys are in the garage," Zhenlan replied. "Yuche needs them for the foundation."

"And the rest?"

"Gone."

Lingyun shifted on the couch. "Very dramatically gone."

I looked at him.

"There was lightning," he explained. "I would’ve helped, but apparently fire near paper is dangerous when you’re injured."

"It’s dangerous when you’re you," Yuche said without looking up from his coffee.

"That too."

I returned my attention to Zhenlan and Chenghai. "You didn’t have to burn them because I was angry."

Zhenlan’s expression changed slightly. "We didn’t."

"You did it after I found them."

"Yes."

"That sounds suspiciously related."

"It was," Chenghai said. He leaned one shoulder against the wall, but unlike the day before, he didn’t look toward the door or listen for a radio that was no longer there. "You made us see what we’d been building."

I folded my arms. "And now you’re destroying it because I told you I didn’t want it."

"No," Zhenlan said.

The answer came too quickly for me to argue with it.

He crossed the room and stopped in front of me, close enough that I had to lift my head to maintain eye contact. "We destroyed it because we don’t want it either."

I stared at him.

Behind me, Lingyun made a quiet sound that was probably approval. Yuche remained silent, although I could feel his attention move toward us.

Zhenlan continued before I could decide whether I believed him. "The workers still have the buildings they already use. Their protection remains in place, and they’ll continue managing their own supplies. Nothing that already exists is being taken from them."

"We cancelled everything else," Chenghai added. "There won’t be another wall, more housing, a medical center, or a command building. No one new is being brought onto the property."

I looked toward the windows covered by plants and metal and narrowed my eyes. "What happens if one of their families arrives?"

"They can decide whether to share the space they already have," Chenghai said. "Or they can leave and find somewhere larger. We’re not building another settlement for them."

There was no cruelty in his voice. He didn’t sound angry at the workers or embarrassed that they still existed. He simply sounded finished arranging his life around possibilities that hadn’t happened.

Zhenlan’s attention remained on me. "The communications building is outside the private barrier. If the workers need something, they can handle it there."

"And if something attacks them?"

"If it threatens the property, we deal with it," he answered. "If it doesn’t, they have weapons and power users of their own."

That was almost exactly what I would’ve said.

It should’ve satisfied me.

Instead, the quiet living room felt strange in a way I hadn’t expected. There were no voices coming through a receiver, no folders creeping onto my shelves, and no papers waiting to cover the coffee table. The mansion had returned to being what I had built it to be.

A house.

Mine.

Again.

I looked at the two men responsible for removing everything and felt the irritation I had carried upstairs the night before loosen slightly.

"You could’ve told me before doing all that."

Chenghai raised an eyebrow. "Would you have asked us not to?"

"No."

"Then we saved time."

I narrowed my eyes. "You’ve all become irritatingly comfortable using my own logic against me."

Lingyun lifted his hand from the couch. "I’ve always done that."

"No one asked you."

"I know."

Zhenlan reached past me and closed the empty cabinet door. His arm brushed mine, but he didn’t step away afterward.

"We should’ve noticed sooner," he said. "You shouldn’t have needed to explain why your house was still yours."

I waited for an apology or a promise that they would do better.

He didn’t give me either.

Instead, Zhenlan looked around the living room as though seeing it without the radios and plans for the first time. When his attention returned to me, there was something different in it. The same weight remained, but it was no longer aimed past me toward whatever disaster might happen next.

Chenghai moved away from the wall and stopped on my other side. He wasn’t touching me, but there was no radio in his hand and nowhere else he appeared interested in going.

The two of them had spent weeks making themselves useful enough to justify staying. Now they had removed the work.

That left an uncomfortable question.

I looked from Zhenlan to Chenghai. "Then what do you want?"

Neither man answered immediately.

Lingyun lowered his arm from his face and smiled.

Yuche took another drink of tea, apparently content to let them solve this problem without him.

Zhenlan’s gaze dropped briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes.

Chenghai noticed.

So did I.