Eve and I throw our bags together. This time, Jinx shows us where the designers stowed a pair of backpacks. The gray packs match our cargo pants and contrast against my white T-shirt and her tank top. Not that we're looking to make a fashion statement. The materials are drab and void of color, not camouflage, but not standing out either.

Our bags are bigger and hold a week of freeze-dried food and a quart-sized canteen for each of us with water purifying filters on the drinking spouts. All we need to do is submerge the canteen, screw the screen on tight, and the filter cleans the water as we guzzle. One filter purifies a gallon of water. That means four refills, and we have a dozen filters each. Forty-eight refills of our canteens, but after that we'll have to resort to boiling our water and constructing a crude filtration system, until our bodies grow accustomed to the bacteria in the rivers and streams. Or it kills us. Hopefully, we'll build up a resistance.

In the drawstring bags, we stuff a change of clothes and seed packs for crops, if we ever plant a garden. If this so-called Cain character pursues us, intending to kill us, I'm not sure if we'll be able to slow down enough to camp out, much less reap a harvest.

Jinx urges us to move faster. I'm not sure how Cain got past Abraham, and how he swiped a ride to the surface, but he's on his way, and we have little time to spare.

Each of us brought a knife we strapped on our belts and Jinx has percussion blasters. I suspect Cain armed himself with a far greater arsenal, more than Eve and I, but I hope not more than the sphere-shaped drone that Jinx controls.

We hustle past the Embryo Lab and the Farm Lab, and burst into the Animal Barn.

"We could use the 3D printer to make better weapons," I say. "Like swords, or guns."

"Can it make guns?" Eve asks.

"Theoretically, it can." Jinx hovers behind us. "You'd need gunpowder and time to make ammunition. We have neither."

"What about swords?"

"Time would be a problem. Cain has already passed the space ark, in-route to intercept us. As soon as he drew within range, the ark's radar system picked him up."

"Wait." My brow furrows. "He didn't come from the space ark, just like us?"

"No. He came from somewhere else."

"And where is that?" Eve stares at Jinx with wide eyes and tight lips.

"That information is unavailable, but the memory transfer should grant you access to it when you use the transmitters. But we don't have time for these questions. We need to hurry."

With that, we continue down the main corridor and hang a right leading to the catwalks. As we cross the shallow channel beneath us, a sense of uneasiness grips my stomach and twists it into a knot. My thoughts whirl like a windstorm. All these feelings about leaving and staying and knowing what's out there, and wondering why there's someone other than Abraham awake from stasis. A new person. Another player in the madness that is this alternate version of Earth. Someone named Cain, but as Jinx grants us passage through the rear airlock door, the emotions and thoughts fade away when I realize that once again, it's me and Eve that must struggle to survive. Our relationship has ventured into deeper depths. And fire will test it. Soon.

We rush out of the habitat and stick to the river, choosing the path Jinx and I took to reach the pod and the transmitters earlier.

"We have two things to worry about," Jinx says. "Cain and the vile bears. If we follow the river, and stay out of the forest, we have a better chance of avoiding the bears. But if we remain in the open, Cain will see us much easier. We'll be easy targets."

"Then what should we do?" I ask.

"We need to go west. To do that, we need to cross the river. Going south, we'd have to cross the river too, like you did when you escaped the habitat the first time. If you remember, it sweeps south and then east like a giant snake curling through Yellowstone. If we went in that direction, once we made it through the vile bear infested forest, that would lead us to the caldera lake. It would be a dead end. Cain would have us cornered."

So we hurry on, squeezed for time. We make it past the site where we retrieved the pod Abraham sent down to us with the transmitters. Before long, we've put three miles between us and the habitat. The edge of the forest extends to the riverbank and provides cover for us. It also brings us closer to vile bear territory. I'm sick of those bears. Period.

"Why does Cain want to kill us?" Eve asks. "I don't understand."

"You will find out everything when we get to a safe location."

At that moment, a supersonic boom splits the northern sky. A bullet-shaped craft bursts into the upper atmosphere, streaking an exhaust trail as it thunders toward the habitat. I crouch next to Eve behind a tree, the river rumbling between its banks a few feet away. Jinx hovers over my shoulder, observing the rocket as it uses thrusters mounted on its nose to slow down so it can land. I catch myself not breathing, caught in an imagination of what Cain might look like. I snap out of it when Eve touches my arm.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know, Eve." We've had this exchange many times since our awakening. We're both in the same predicament, with only one major source of help. "Jinx, is that Cain?"

"None other. A murderer since before the flood."

From our hiding place, I witness the rocket ship as it slows and rotates in midair, its tail aiming toward the ground, fire blasting out of its nozzle cone. The exhaust stirs up a flurry of smoke and debris as the silver bullet lands near the habitat, beyond the tree line, out of sight.

"It won't take Cain and his tracker long to breach the habitat and find out you're not there," Jinx says. "We must leave now. I've located a fallen tree that spans the width of the river. Both of you can get across."

"What's a tracker?" I ask.

"Not what. Who is more like it, but we don't have time for that talk now."

I clutch Eve by the wrist and we sprint along the riverbank, with Jinx leading the way, moving at a brisk pace. He flies six feet off the ground so fast it's difficult to keep up. His speed conveys a sense of urgency that Eve and I detect with ease.

Fifteen minutes into our flight, the thick trunk of a downed spruce tree extends from one bank to the other. Its bark appears flaky and peeling and blanketed with slick, green moss.

Eve steps up on the tree and tests it. Her foot slides out from under her.

"It's too slippery," she says. "We'll never make it across."

Jinx rotates toward us, his blue screen flowing with wavy lines as he talks. "I've analyzed the possibilities. There's a ninety-two percent chance you'll fall if you walk across, but if you crawl, your chances of making it stand at eighty-four percent. Hand me your drawstring bags and I'll carry them across."

A pair of arms with robotic hands protrude from the bottom of the drone. The appendages grab our tote bags, leaving Eve and I shouldering our backpacks.

Eve sums up her feeling about it all with a discontented wag of her head and then starts across on her hands and knees. I'm right behind her with the river rapids roaring in my ears.

Halfway across, she gets ahead of herself and her knee slips on the mossy surface. Her backpack, full of supplies, creates force and momentum that's hard to counter. She collapses against the tree and falters to one side, but catches herself with her opposite hand, whitewater rapids rushing beneath her. I reach to steady her, grabbing her cargo pants by the leg.

I look up to check on her and my other hand slides out from under me, and my chin smacks the heel of her boot. My backpack smashes down on top of me.

"Sorry." I right myself, struggling to my hands and knees. "Are you okay?"

Eve pushes up and glances back at me. "Never better."

Our mishap produces extra caution as we continue across the tree. It slows our progress, but we make it to the other side where Jinx waits for us.

The forest spreads out before us, the dense stands of spruce making the passage tight. As we journey deeper, Eve and I have to turn sideways to slink between the trees. The undergrowth snags our feet and briars scrape at our arms and legs. After about thirty minutes of walking, I turn and realize the river is long behind us. I can't see it anymore. The thick forest blocks out most of the sunlight and makes it hard to know which direction we're headed. Thankfully, Jinx has a GPS map, so he keeps us on track. Of course, I don't know where he's leading us. All I know is he's helping us escape.

"Cameras and sensors reveal Cain has breached the habitat," Jinx says. "He's searching for you now."

This news compels us to lengthen our stride. We forge ahead, deeper into the dark forest. Another ten to fifteen minutes pass. "He knows you're not there. He's sending out the tracker."

"Earlier, you said the tracker was a who. So, who's the tracker?" Eve stops, causing all of us to halt among the trees.

"She will hunt you down and bring you to Cain. His mission is to kill you. Killing is what he does, and he does it himself. We have a good head start, but unfortunately, his tracker is cunning. Her name is Jezebel, and she has a nasty side. Together, Cain and Jezebel are ruthless."

As Jinx foretells of our impending doom, my gaze wanders over to Eve and meets her petrified eyes. Our chins drop and words fail us, our hearts hammering in our throats, making it difficult to breathe.

We follow Jinx through the endless swamp of trees, wondering if our flight will ever end. Soon, the sun drops in the sky and our legs grow weary and our eyes faint. During our time in this dense forest, we've yet to see a vile bear, and as we come to find out, there's good reason. The rhino-bears are massive and too large to fit between the narrow gaps among the trees. It's not practical for them to live here, and I'm thankful for that, but I wonder what kind of other creatures can.

In the middle of the forest, in the gloomy darkness, Jinx says it's safe to rest. We've lost Cain and Jezebel for now. Once we're settled around a fire in a small clearing, and after we've eaten, Eve brings up the subject of the transmitters. Should we use them?

At rest on the ground, Jinx opens the compartment door where I stored the case. I remove it and hold it between me and Eve. The campfire flickers in her hazel eyes, painting her irises a shade of orange and green.

As we sit with our legs crossed, facing each other, I lay the case down between us. "I told you, I'll destroy them if you want me to," I say to Eve. "We don't have to remember the past because we can have a future together right now."

"But what about Cain?" she asks. "And Jezebel? Jinx said we would learn why they're after us. That we'd find out what went wrong with the reseeding, that we'd have access to the information kept from us. We might need that knowledge to know how to escape Cain and Jezebel. It could end up saving us."

She glances down at the case and picks it up. "We need our skills and knowledge from our past life, if we're ever going to survive here and start a family."

"And establish a presence for humanity," I say. "And reseed the Earth, properly."

Our hands cradle the case between us as our lips draw close for a passionate kiss. We've been through so much in such a short time and our relationship seems deeper now than when we first arrived on the planet. And it is. In more ways than one. When our lips part, we open the case and stare at the contents with spellbound eyes. Two pairs of earpieces that resemble tiny apples fit inside snug foam impressions. There's a white card with words written in golden curvy letters. Centered beneath the inscription, beside a dash mark, the authors are identified as the Designers. My mouth drops and so does Eve's as we read the words to ourselves. The card simply says:

The Knowledge of Good and Evil.

"What does that mean?" Eve says.

"It means to know everything, you must take the good with the bad," Jinx replies.

"What could be so bad about knowing the truth?"

"What about our past relationship could be so bad?" I ask. "We loved each other and were married. We are married."

"We do love each other," Eve says.

I meet Eve's gaze and hold it. "We do it together then, at the same time."

That's when we insert the transmitters into our ears, and Jinx activates them. In a flash, the truth opens our eyes of understanding, and we remember everything.

The knowledge of good and evil.