After Eve expresses her wariness concerning us getting our memories back, I sense her distrust of Abraham and our overall dissatisfaction with our confinement here growing. I don't know what to think, but I can't understand why we are in this predicament. Seems like things could have unfolded differently if he hadn't waited until we got to the ground to give us the final memory transfer.

"Jinx?" I say. "Did you hear what we just said?"

"You didn't want me to listen, so I did not."

"Thank you for the privacy." I glance at Eve and then continue. "If we didn't get the memory transfers, if something went wrong again, say, the pod crashed and destroyed them, how would Eve and I carry out our work here in the habitat?"

"Most of the artificial reproduction and insemination processes are automated, like on the ark."

"Robotics?" I reply.

"That's correct. I oversee the operation. There are some things you would have to do, but I could provide instructions for you to follow. It would slow the process tremendously because I would have to describe each step along the way. With the memory transfers, you would know what to do as we go. Things would go faster."

Jinx continues. "The insemination and reproduction procedures are automated, but growth in the artificial wombs requires careful monitoring and adjustments to maintain viability. Those controls are manual, designed that way to assure development and birth. The designers didn't want everything left to robotics. If there was a system failure, there would be no way to correct it. Their design called for AI support but not total dependence."

"So, we could do it?" I say. "But it would be difficult and take more time?"

"That is correct."

I don't like this, Eve mouths to me.

I seem to have a knack for lip reading.

I want to go, she adds.

Outside? Leave? I reply.

She nods.

I swallow the mounting pressure in my throat as I think about leaving the habitat.

Biting my bottom lip, I consider the possibility. We could leave, but what about the garden? What about the animals? Then I realize something. Why do we need to do any of this inside? Why do we need to do any of it at all? Abraham said he reseeded the Earth with trees and plant life, and with animals. Why do we need to recreate it all over again in a controlled environment, if it's already been done?

We don't.

With that conclusion, I bridge the gap between Eve and I, and place my hand over hers. When I give it a squeeze, she doesn't pull away.

The river. Now, I mouth.

She gnaws on the inside of her cheek. Our decision weighs on her, but she doesn't change her mind.

In our sleeping quarters, I discover two drawstring bags large enough to carry three days of freeze-dried food, water, and an extra change of clothes. When our supplies run out, we'll have to survive on our own, but hopefully, it will get us by.

In the Farm Lab, I get a variety of seeds in their waterproof packets. I have to think ahead.

In the garden shed, I find a pair of knives with sheaths. We buckle the blades on our belts, and then we return to the catwalk.

"What are you doing?" Jinx's voice emanates from a nearby speaker. For a moment, I wonder if the designers hid cameras at different locations around the habitat. If there are speakers for Jinx to talk to us and microphones for him to hear us, then cameras aren't out of the realm of possibility, either.

"Oh, just wondering how we're going to fill the canal with water." I assume Jinx thinks the habitat is secure. Even if he can see us, he may not know what we're up to. "I'm sure the designers intended the canal for fish. Can our water supply fill it?"

"I calculated twenty-five percent of our reserves for this very thing. Not enough to fill it, but enough to create a shallow stream for marine life to survive."

"Could we tap into the river?"

"So that's why you seem so interested in it?" Jinx replies.

"That's right," Eve says.

"I detect elevated heart rates. Are you two lying to me?"

"What do you mean?" I glimpse the intensity in Eve's stare.

"You cannot leave the habitat." Jinx's electronic voice carries a hard edge. "Abraham has forbidden it. If you leave, you will surely die."

"Go," I say to Eve. "Now."

She hesitates. "Are we sure about this? He said we would die."

An alarm klaxon blasts out of the surrounding speakers. In the background, Jinx says, "I have alerted Abraham. I will execute counter measures to assure the survival of humanity."

"We don't have a choice now." I swing my leg over the handrail and stand on the outside of the catwalk with the river rushing below me. "Come on." I offer Eve a hand. "You're the one who wanted to go."

"But you suggested it yesterday."

"Eve. We have to hurry."

With that, she hops over the railing with a limberness I didn't expect. "You ready?" she asks. Her expression is a matter of fact.

"I estimate it's roughly a twenty-foot swim to breach the outside wall of the habitat. Make sure you sink deep and stay down for as long as you can. You don't want to hit your head."

A loud mechanical sound erupts and something shifts under the catwalk.

"Jinx is closing the floor." I grab Eve's hand. "We go now, or we don't go at all."

Eve leaps from the catwalk and jerks me down with her in a wild plunge into the river. Neither of us knows what to expect when we break the water into the new world. We've only seen the sun and stars through the skylight.

The river swallows us whole, and in an instant, the water drenches us from head to toe. It sweeps us under and away from the habitat in a rushing flow. My vision goes dark. The current is faster than I expected, but I should've known by looking at it how briskly the water was moving.

In a few seconds, we burst through the surface of the rapids and break into brilliant daylight. The river roars around us with a violent intensity as it carries us along in its powerful hands. But I'm not scared. I'm thrilled by the action of the sights and sounds around us. And I'm amazed that we took this chance. That we risked it all to be free.

I hold on to Eve tightly. I won't let go.

She clings to me, her arms coiled around me. We won't let go of each other.

The river surges beneath us and dumps us over a slight drop into a slower moving pool. We swim for the far bank, but then I hear rumbling thunder and realize that downriver, a much larger waterfall awaits us.

The river tugs us toward the fall.

"Swim, Eve, swim with everything you've got."

And we do. Our arms and legs thrash in the water as the river draws us toward the edge.

The threat is real. We could die, as Jinx warned.

The closer we get to the waterfall, the faster my heart crashes against my chest.

Near the bank, I snag a limb of a low hanging tree and cling to it with all my strength. Eve crawls over me and grabs ahold of a thicker branch above my head. Using it, she hauls herself to safety.

On dry ground, she turns around and extends her hand to me. I pass her my bag and then she pulls me up where I latch onto the thick branch. As I hover above the ground, she grabs me and pulls me toward her, away from danger. My momentum carries me forward and I collapse on top of her, panting for air.

My limbs ache with exhaustion, my eyes clamped shut. When I open them, I'm staring down at Eve, our faces so close we could kiss. Our bodies melt into each other, gathering warmth.

I can't believe it. We're free and we survived the river, but all I can do is look at Eve and her drenched red hair matted to her face and neck. Specks of sand stick to her cheeks. I'm enjoying the closeness of our bodies and the gravitational pull of our lips as if destined for a passionate embrace.

Gently, her hands move to my chest, and then she shoves me off of her.

I lie there, on my back, gasping, with the memory of our hearts hammering against each other.

"Come on." She doesn't waste any time as she reaches for me.

When our hands meet, she yanks me to my feet.

We stand next to each other for a few moments, taking in the wilderness surrounding us. On the other side of the river, evergreen spruce trees shoot into the air, elevated by a mountain beneath them. On our side, the terrain flattens before us with trees towering over us, clustered together, forming a dark forest, leading south based on the eastern rise of the sun.

Yellowstone, as Jinx described it, steals our breath and draws us to its heart somewhere within the tree line.

As we journey deeper into the shadowy new world, insects chirp and buzz around us. Birds flock high in the green canopy. The forest is brimming with the sounds of life, and it's then I wonder why Abraham didn't want us to experience this.

That's when a fierce roar rips through the trees, coming from a hillside up ahead.

I grab Eve and jerk her down behind a boulder. My heart pounds in my chest and air hitches in my throat. Eve holds her breath as we peer between the trees, searching for the source of the roar.

The roar of a predator.

"Maybe we should turn back?" I say.

Behind us, another animalistic bellow claws its way to our ears, sending gooseflesh to our arms and necks.

"There is no going back," Eve says.

"So we run?"

"We run... for our lives."

With the roars echoing around us, we dash away, but to where, I just don't know. I only hope our decision to leave doesn't get us killed before our adventure even begins in a land so beautiful and frightening, a place called Yellowstone.