The Researcher

The apartment was large, spacious, filled with natural light, well-furnished—beautiful and modern. The kind of modern that would have been considered cutting-edge in 2020. Nowadays, though, modernity wasn't much of a concern anymore; security was the priority. Danger was always so close that people no longer cared about trends—they chose what resonated with them instead, which, as Alia liked to insist, was a good thing. Of course, there were always exceptions. Some were still obsessed with trends, but that had diminished. Fast fashion no longer existed, for example. The kind of fashion that moved at a speed destructive to the environment was gone—well, industries no longer existed.

Each of them had their own bedroom, all of which were suites, meaning everyone had a private bathroom. Without hesitation, that was the first thing they did—head straight to the bathrooms. No one liked the feeling of going hours without one. Not that they didn't use the diapers when necessary, but they tried to avoid it as much as possible—it wouldn't be good for them.

Alia stepped into the shower. They had been keeping up a decent travel pace, and since they hadn't stopped at the last refuge for long, she would have plenty of time to do everything she wanted at a relaxed pace. She liked being in the shower, even knowing she couldn't stay too long—for the sake of the environment. But it was a place where she felt she could think clearly. She loved how her thoughts flowed effortlessly there, allowing her to see all the variables.

They had dinner together but went straight to bed afterward, completely exhausted from the journey. At least the next day promised some tasks, but it would be a much calmer one.

***

Alia woke up with a thousand and one thoughts racing through her mind—so many things to do. The most important tasks were at the forefront, such as informing the people about what had happened, explaining the situation to the refuge, and starting Tyler's training. From the moment she opened her eyes that morning, she kept remembering even more things to do, to the point that she felt compelled to grab a piece of paper and start writing them down, creating a long to-do list:

Explain the situation to the people here;Report what happened at the other refuge;Ask the search team or confirm if they had been sent;Start training Tyler;Before training Tyler, hand over the employment contract;Assess the situation around this refuge;Continue the research I was prevented from doing at the other refuge;Teach Tyler full sign language so he can understand Helena without her having to write;Acquire more equipment for future travels;Conduct tests using the new research information;See if anyone in this refuge is studying the tree-men phenomenon;If so, read their research and compare it with the new findings...

She paused for a moment, realizing how much there was to do. But the main priorities were training Tyler and speaking with the people here. Still, Tyler was almost at the top of the list—after all, she might not be the most sociable person, but that didn't mean she wanted to see someone die, especially a member of her own team.

"There's so much to do... we might have to stay longer than I thought," she muttered to herself, looking at her list. She was sitting on her bed, writing everything down.

Like Helena, she enjoyed using paper. The act of writing had always been a pleasure for her. Typing felt so devoid of romance, so robotic—even though she was always forced to type everything out later. But she still enjoyed handwriting—the feeling of the pen or mechanical pencil gliding across the paper, the sound of writing, the scent of the pages. Even knowing all of this, she couldn't deny that handwriting was impractical. It smudged easily, had no backup if lost... Though, if they lived in the old days, typing would have been even better since she could simply save everything to the cloud. Nowadays, that wasn't as easy as it could have been.