The forest road gave way to a stretch of clear asphalt. That was when the truck’s engine roar died abruptly.
No one said a word. The silence that settled in the cab was dense, heavy, charged with the tension of those who know they have just crossed an invisible line.
In front of us, the asphalt artery was almost completely blocked. Two vehicles amputated the passage like the skeleton of a dead beast. One of them, a dark SUV, lay overturned on its right side, its chassis deformed. The other, a gray sedan, remained crossed in the middle of the road, all four doors wide open, as if its occupants had been torn from inside.
There was blood. A lot of it. The dark liquid formed thick puddles that contrasted against the gray of the pavement.
Marcus did not look away from the front. He kept both hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles paled.
"What do we do?" he asked, his voice barely a tactical murmur.
I looked at the road, assessing the shadows of the trees flanking the highway. I inhaled deeply and activated the System. The scarlet holoscreen flashed on my cornea, projecting data over the macabre scene.
AREA ANALYSIS
Human blood: Confirmed.
Estimated time since spill: Less than one hour.
Spilled fuel: Moderate.
Human footprints: Multiple (Chaotic).
Drag marks: Detected.
Immediate human presence: Not confirmed on surface.
I blinked to dispel the glow of the letters. There were no bodies. Not a single corpse in sight. In this new world, that was what worried me most. Quick death left remains; disappearances implied something far worse.
"Someone survived," I said, breaking the ice.
Jonah, who until that moment had remained petrified in the back, leaned abruptly between the front seats. His breathing was erratic.
"How do you know?" he asked.
I pointed at the ground through the dirty windshield.
"There are drag marks veering toward the shoulder. They weren’t killed instantly," I explained.
The militiaman’s face changed. All the blood drained from his features.
"It’s them," he murmured.
Marcus turned his head slowly, scrutinizing the man with analytical coldness.
"Do you know them?" he asked.
Jonah did not answer immediately. He opened the door and got out of the vehicle, stepping onto the asphalt with heavy steps.
"I know those cars." He pulled his rifle from his shoulder and released the safety with a metallic click. "They’re my people."
Marcus opened his own door, straightening up on the road with his weapon ready.
"Then be quick. A sweep ambush," he said.
Jonah looked him in the eyes, desperation fracturing his posture.
"I can’t leave them," he replied.
"And we can’t walk into an ambush zone without knowing what the hell happened here," the mercenary leader countered, implacable.
"They could still be alive!" Jonah shouted.
"That’s exactly why we have to think before running in to get gunned down," Marcus said.
I got out of the truck, feeling the crunch of broken glass under my boots. Jonah’s five men had spread out between the sedan and the back of the truck, crammed and silent. Now they watched the scene with their nerves on edge.
"Five minutes," I intervened.
Marcus looked at me, frowning.
"What?" he asked.
"I’m asking for five minutes to check the area," I ruled, stepping into the discussion. "If we find survivors, we get them out. If the trail goes cold or it’s a trap, we leave immediately."
Jonah clenched his jaw but ended up nodding.
"That seems fair," he said.
Marcus observed the thickness of the forest around us. He assessed the wind, the terrain, and the odds. Finally, he raised his rifle.
"Five minutes. Not one more," he ordered.
Scarlett landed on the asphalt behind me, drawing her blade with the fluidity of a predator.
"I’m going with you," she said.
From the recovered vehicle behind us, Maya kicked the door open.
"So am I," she added.
Marcus shook his head firmly.
"I don’t want everyone on the ground. If we’re attacked, we need mobile firepower," he explained.
Maya held his gaze, resting her weapon’s barrel on the door.
"Then three people on the ground. It’s the minimum perimeter to cover blind angles," she replied.
Marcus grunted under his breath, accepting the ex-soldier’s logic.
"Five minutes. Clock starts now," he conceded.
We advanced in formation. We approached the overturned vehicle first. The stench of oxidized iron and gasoline was suffocating. The windshield was shattered, turned into a spiderweb of safety glass, and a huge bloodstain soaked the driver’s seat fabric.
I crouched beside the deformed chassis.
"System," I whispered.
The scarlet interface flooded my peripheral vision.
VEHICLE ANALYSIS
Primary damage: Frontal impact.
Prior braking: Confirmed.
Secondary collision: Confirmed (Rollover).
External gunfire: Detected.
Probability of external attack: 78%
I ran my fingers over the dark holes in the bodywork. The metal edges were bent inward.
"They shot at them before the accident," I concluded. "They forced them off the road."
Scarlett examined the metal with a clinical eye, calculating trajectories.
"How many shooters?" she asked.
I invoked the analysis again on the surrounding terrain.
[Recoverable shell casings: 11.]
"At least one with automatic fire," I replied.
Scarlett shook her head slowly.
"Two." She pointed at the rear door, almost imperceptible among the crushed undergrowth. "These impacts come from another angle. Crossfire."
Maya crouched beside her.
"She’s right." She dug two fingers into the mud and picked up a shiny brass casing. "And it’s not the same caliber as the others. Heavy ammunition."
I turned toward Jonah, who was watching our flank nervously.
"Do the men chasing you use these weapons?" I asked.
His jaw tensed so hard I feared he would crack a tooth.
"Yes," he replied.
Marcus, who was keeping watch from the road, intervened loudly:
"How many men do they have in total?" he asked.
"Enough," Jonah muttered.
"That’s not a tactical answer," Marcus shot back.
Jonah took a deep breath, swallowing his pride.
"They’re more organized than us. They operate like a military squad. Their leader is called Mercer," he confessed.
A metallic sound tore through the silence from inside the overturned vehicle. We all aimed instantly, but Maya stood up, relaxing her posture.
"I found something," she said.
She had forced the rear door open. From beneath the bloodied seats, she pulled out a dust-covered tactical backpack. She opened it on the hood of the other car. Inside, we found a few dented food cans, bandages, a half-consumed water bottle, and a photograph folded in half.
Jonah took the photograph. Upon seeing it, his expression hardened, his eyes gleaming with a mix of pain and fury.
"Lena," he murmured.
"Do you know her?" I asked softly.
"She’s one of the missing from our camp," he replied.
He turned the image over. Behind the smiling faces, there was an address handwritten in black ink. But it wasn’t the service station. It was a different location. A residential complex a few kilometers south of our position.
I frowned.
"That’s not the station," I said.
Jonah nodded slowly, gripping the paper.
"No. It’s where we were supposed to meet if we got separated. A secondary safe house." He looked at me. "But if she left this here, she was trying to tell us something."
"Or someone else was," Scarlett said, studying the handwriting. "This doesn’t look like the same hand that wrote the other notes."
Marcus closed the distance.
"Then we have two locations," he said. "The service station and this safe house."
Jonah looked at him, distrustful.
"Which one do we check first?" he replied.
"The service station," Marcus said. "It’s closer. And it’s on our route."
"And the safe house?" Jonah insisted.
"We’ll check it after. If there’s anything left to check."
Jonah tucked the photograph back near his chest.
"If she’s still alive," he murmured.
A slight crack, like a branch snapping under a combat boot, echoed among the trees. Time seemed to stop. We all raised our weapons toward the tree line. Absolute silence. And then, another crack. Louder. Closer.
My pulse quickened.
Analysis.
[Movement detected.]
[Quantity: 6 targets.]
[Vector: Converging on your position.]
[Note: The targets do not match the 17 units detected earlier. They are a separate group. Possible local scavengers or another faction.]
"Six targets," I reported in a low voice. "Converging."
Scarlett adjusted her grip on her rifle.
"Hostile?" she asked.
"Unknown."
"We don’t have time for unknown," Marcus said. "We move. Now."
We ran back toward the vehicles, but the forest was already alive. Shadows moved between the trunks. I saw the glint of a rifle barrel. I saw the outline of a human figure.
And then, a voice.
"Don’t shoot! We’re not hostiles!"
A man emerged from the treeline, his hands raised. He was young, mid-twenties, with dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His civilian clothes were covered in dried bloodstains. He kept one hand raised, in a sign of surrender, while using the other to support himself on a tree trunk.
Behind him, five more figures emerged. All of them looked like survivors. All of them looked exhausted. All of them looked terrified.
"We just want to talk," the man said. "We’re looking for the same thing you are."
"And what’s that?" Marcus demanded, his rifle still aimed at the man’s chest.
The stranger looked at the service station in the distance. Then at us. Then at the station again.
"A way out," he said.
I frowned.
"Out of what?"
The man lowered his gaze to the ground. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.
"Out of this nightmare."
I studied him for a long moment. His eyes were tired. His hands were shaking. But there was something else in his gaze. Something that looked almost like hope.
"Your name," I said.
"Elias," he replied. "Elias Ward."
The System reacted before I could.
[SYNCHRONIZED HUMAN DETECTED.]
[Name: Elias Ward.]
[Physical condition: Stable.]
[Fatigue: High.]
[Injuries: Minor.]
[Synchronization: 4%.]
[Adaptation: 2%.]
[Detected Ability: Resonance Perception.]
[Mastery: Unstable.]
[Note: This individual is synchronized with the network. He is not hostile. His ability is passive and perception-based.]
I kept my face neutral. But inside, my mind was racing. Another synchronized human. Another piece of the puzzle.
Elias looked at me intently. His expression, previously exhausted, changed completely. His eyes seemed to focus on something invisible floating in front of my face.
"You can see it too," Elias whispered.
I tensed.
"See what?" I asked.
"The information. The flow," Elias replied.
I didn’t answer, but my silence was confirmation enough. Elias slowly lowered his hands, ignoring Marcus’s rifle.
"Then you’re connected," Elias said.
"Yes," I confirmed.
Jonah turned from the mattress, looking at both of us as if we were speaking another language.
"What the hell are you two talking about?" Jonah asked.
Elias didn’t take his eyes off me.
"About something that started before you arrived in this city, Jonah. Something much bigger," Elias said.
I approached him, lowering the barrel of my weapon but keeping my finger near the trigger.
"Does your System show you complete statistics?" I asked.
Elias shook his head.
"No," he replied.
That surprised me. The nature of his interface was different from mine.
"You see nothing?" I insisted.
"I see some things. Flashes, presences. But not structured numbers like the ones I know you just saw when you looked at me," Elias explained.
The reading marked his mastery as "unstable." He had no logical reason to lie to me.
"How long have you been synchronized?" I inquired.
"I don’t know exactly. Time stopped making sense when the nightmares became real," Elias replied.
"And how did you survive a shootout with an unstable mastery?" I asked.
Elias lowered his gaze toward the woman on the mattress.
"She found me," he said.
Lena, making a monumental effort, weakly raised her head.
"He was dying in an alley... when I found him," Lena said.
Jonah clenched his jaw, assimilating the loyalty forged between them, but paranoia remained active.
"Who attacked this place exactly?" Jonah asked.
Elias leaned against the wall.
"Mercer’s men. The ones who came after you," Elias replied.
Jonah shook his head firmly.
"They’re chasing me for stealing from them," Jonah said.
"They were chasing us too," Elias countered.
"Then we have the same enemy. It’s simple," Jonah said.
Elias shook his head slowly, and his gaze darkened.
"Not exactly," Elias said.
Silence fell over the room, heavy and ominous.
"What do you mean, Elias?" I asked.
Elias looked Jonah in the eyes.
"The men chasing you weren’t the only ones operating in this sector," Elias said.
Jonah froze, the color draining from his face.
"How many groups are out there?" Jonah murmured.
"At least three different factions hunting," Elias replied.
Marcus cursed under his breath.
"Perfect. Multiple fronts," Marcus said.
"What are they looking for?" I pressed.
"Some are looking for the towers. The altered infrastructures," Elias said.
"For what?" I asked.
"I don’t know," Elias replied.
"And what are you looking for?" I asked.
Elias looked at his own hands, covered in grime and dried blood.
"I just wanted to survive one more day," Elias said.
A dull thud echoed in the outer hallway. We all turned our heads in unison. Another thud. Boots. Organized, tactical steps. Many.
Marcus raised his weapon immediately.
"They found us," Marcus said.
The first shot pierced the wooden door and embedded itself in the concrete of our room.
"Move!" Marcus roared. "We’re leaving now!"
Jonah tried to lift Lena, but his knees buckled under the dead weight.
"I can’t carry her for long, she’s losing consciousness!" Jonah shouted.
"I’ll help," Elias intervened quickly.
Together they draped the woman’s arms over their necks and lifted her.
Scarlett positioned herself by the entrance, covering the corridor.
"Gabriel!" Scarlett shouted over the roar of a second shot.
"What?" I asked.
"Escape route! Your system, use it!" Scarlett ordered.
I closed my eyes for a second and ordered the tactical map to open. The complete structure of the underground bunker exploded before my eyes in a three-dimensional crimson hologram. Collapsed tunnels. Sealed rooms. Blind hallways. Blocked exits.
It was too much information. A sharp pain pierced my cornea.
Filter. Escape network.
I closed the sections I didn’t need with a blink. The map simplified, tracing a single viable line through the rubble.
"Sixty meters west, through the maintenance corridor," I said.
"Is it a clean exit?" Marcus demanded.
I kept analyzing the structural data.
"Not exactly. There’s a hatch," I replied.
Elias, holding Lena, approached me with wide eyes.
"We can’t go right," Elias said.
"Why? It’s the fastest route," I asked.
"There’s concentrated energy. A lot," Elias replied.
I looked at him, assessing his ability.
"You can detect it through the walls?" I asked.
"Yes." Elias closed his eyes tightly, as if the mere presence of the energy caused him physical pain. "To the right there’s a main pipe. Don’t dare touch it."
I checked the map. The System superimposed a warning box over the right route.
[Warning: High energy concentration. Anomalous origin.]
I corrected the course instantly.
"Then we’ll go left. Toward the west wing," I said.
Scarlett, emptying a magazine into the hallway to give us cover, smiled slightly.
"You’re starting to be useful," Scarlett said.
"Thanks," I replied.
"It’s not a compliment," Scarlett clarified.
"I’ll take it anyway," I said.