Finding a home proved to be more complicated than Kiran had expected.
The old apartment in Sector 7, where he'd eaten breakfast with Maya and Lena on the morning of the Emergence, was gone. The entire sector was gone, swallowed by the Abyss's initial eruption. In its place: containment zones, monitoring stations, and the vast darkness of the entry point.
So they looked elsewhere.
"This one has three bedrooms," Maya said, scrolling through listings on a tablet the city had provided. "And it's near a school for Lena."
"What's the neighborhood like?"
"Quiet. Suburban. The kind of place where people haven't seen an Abyss-touched diver walking around."
Kiran looked down at his transformed hands. The armor that had grown into his flesh, the dark patterns crawling up his wrists. He wasn't exactly the kind of neighbor most people expected.
"I could wear gloves," he suggested. "And a hat, as Lena recommended. Maybe sunglasses for the eye."
"You'd look like a supervillain trying to go incognito."
"As opposed to what I look like now?"
Maya smiled. "You look like my husband who went through hell to find me. I think that's beautiful."
"Other people might disagree."
"Other people can deal with it."
Lena bounced into the room, clutching yet another drawing. "Mama! Papa! Look! I drew our new house!"
The picture showed a simple house with a red door, surrounded by flowers. Three stick figures stood in front — two adults and one child. The adult with the black scribble-eye was clearly meant to be Kiran.
"It's perfect, sweetheart."
"The nice lady at the center says I should draw more. She says I have a gift." Lena beamed. "I'm going to be an artist when I grow up!"
"Last week you wanted to be an astronaut."
"I can be both! An astronaut-artist! I'll draw pictures of space!"
Kiran had missed this. The noise, the ridiculous plans, the way kids could fill a whole room with wanting.
"We'll find a house with a good art room," he promised. "And a yard for you to play in."
"Can we get a dog?"
Maya and Kiran exchanged a look.
"We'll discuss it."
Daveth appeared in the doorway. He'd been staying in a nearby temporary housing unit, as had the others. "The government people are here again. They want to talk about the 'consultation arrangement.'"
Kiran sighed. "Tell them I'll be there in a minute."
"They brought scientists this time. And cameras."
"Great."
Maya touched his arm. "I can handle the house hunting if you need to deal with them."
"You sure?"
"I spent ten years watching you descend through an impossible dungeon. I can handle real estate agents."
He kissed her forehead. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Take your time. We're not going anywhere." She gave him that crooked smile of hers. "Not anymore."
---
The government representatives had set up in a conference room at the city's administrative center. The scientists were indeed present, academics from various institutions who couldn't quite hide how nervous they were when Kiran walked in.
"Mr. Voss," the lead official began. "Thank you for meeting with us."
"It's not like I have anywhere else to be."
"We've been analyzing the data you've provided about the Abyss's structure and behavior. Your descriptions of the Living Floors, the entities, the door at the bottom — it's invaluable for our understanding of what we're dealing with."
"Good. That's the point of consulting."
"But we have... concerns." The official shifted uncomfortably. "The Abyss has stated its intention to change. To become a 'consensual dungeon,' as you described it. No more random Emergences. No more unwilling consumption. But can we trust that? Can we trust something that spent a decade eating our citizens to suddenly become benevolent?"
"I don't know. I can only tell you what it said. Whether it follows through is beyond my control."
"But you have a relationship with it. A connection. You opened the door. Could you... influence its behavior if necessary?"
Kiran understood what they were really asking. Could he control the Abyss? Could he keep it on a leash?
"No. The Abyss is an independent consciousness. I gave it a chance to change. I can't force it to do anything."
"Then how do we prepare for the possibility that it's lying?"
"You prepare the way you always have. Monitor the entrance. Track any changes in its behavior. But also..." Kiran leaned forward. "Give it a chance. The Abyss was never evil. It was confused, doing what it thought it was supposed to do. Now it knows better. That deserves a chance."
The scientists whispered among themselves. One raised her hand.
"The transformations you underwent — are they stable? Are there any signs of degradation or continued mutation?"
"Stable as far as I can tell. The Abyss changes you to survive in it. Once you're out, the changes stop progressing."
"Could they be reversed?"
"Probably not. The integration is at a cellular level. You'd have to rebuild me from scratch."
"And would you want them reversed? If it were possible?"
Kiran considered the question. His void-eye, the armored skin, the physiology that no longer matched anything in a medical textbook. They were marks of his time in the darkness. Scars, but ones he'd earned.
"I don't know. Ask me in another ten years."
The meeting continued for hours. Questions about the floors, the entities, the physics of the deep Abyss. Kiran answered what he could and admitted ignorance where appropriate. The scientists recorded everything, building a database of knowledge about a realm they'd feared for a decade.
By the time he returned to his family, the sun was setting. Maya had found three promising houses, and Lena had drawn pictures of all of them.
"This one has the best yard," Lena explained, pointing to her rendering. "And this one has the best kitchen. And this one is closest to Daveth and Mira and Sato!"
"You want to live near them?"
"They're family too, Papa. You said so."
He looked at his daughter, four years old, unchanged by the Waiting, still seeing the world with a clarity he envied.
"Yeah," he said. "They are."
His family had grown considerably in the last ten years. Not just blood, not just marriage, but the people who'd walked with him through the dark.
