The truck had been devouring kilometers of cracked asphalt for several minutes without anyone uttering a single word.
The silence in the cabin was heavy, forged from pure survival. After the hell we had unleashed in the station’s underground, none of us had the energy—or the desire—to start a conversation. The only sound was the engine’s roar and the crunch of tires crushing dry branches.
I looked in the rearview mirror.
In the back, Jonah was sitting beside Lena. He held the woman’s hand between his own, his knuckles white from tension, while Evelyn finished rechecking the improvised bandage on her thigh. At the opposite end, hunched against the door, Elias remained isolated. He stared out the window with empty eyes, lost in his own demons. He spoke to no one.
Scarlett was sitting beside me. She wore a thick bandage wrapped tightly around her torso, covering the wound on her side. Fortunately, the blood had stopped seeping through the fabric.
"Don’t move so much," Evelyn warned her from behind, in a clinical tone.
Scarlett lowered her gaze to her own abdomen, frowning.
"I’m still," Scarlett said.
"You’ve been trying to find a position where it doesn’t hurt for five minutes, Scarlett. You’re tensing the muscle," Evelyn replied.
"That’s because this damn truck seems specifically built to torture people," the blonde responded, adjusting herself in the seat with a grimace.
Darius, leaning against some supply boxes, let out a hoarse laugh.
"Finally someone has the courage to say it," Darius said.
Marcus, his hands gripping the wheel and his gaze fixed on the road, didn’t even turn around.
"If you keep complaining, you can get out and walk. The doors don’t have locks," Marcus said.
Silence returned, but this time the tension had broken slightly.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Scarlett noticed. She glanced at me sideways, with those cold, calculating blue eyes.
"What?" she snapped.
"Nothing," I replied.
"You were smiling," Scarlett said.
"Because you’re right about the truck. The seats are a disaster," I replied.
"Don’t get used to agreeing with me," she said.
"That phrase is starting to be your favorite, you know that?" I asked.
Scarlett held my gaze for a full second, assessing me. Then she turned her eyes back to the blurry landscape outside the window.
"Maybe," she said.
Evelyn finished adjusting the bandage knot and sighed.
"It’s not deep. The tissue will recover if you don’t do stupid things," Evelyn said.
Scarlett let out a snort.
"I told you. A scratch," Scarlett said.
"You also said you didn’t need me to treat you and you were bleeding out in my seat," Evelyn replied.
"And I still think the same. I could handle it," Scarlett said.
Evelyn gathered the rest of the medical material, storing it in her kit with precise movements.
"You can think whatever you want. I’m the doctor here, so I’m going to decide when you’re fit to fight again," Evelyn said.
Scarlett raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised by the woman’s authority.
"Are you always this irritating?" Scarlett asked.
"Only with difficult patients who try to act tough," Evelyn replied.
"Then you must hate your job," Scarlett said.
Evelyn smiled, closing the kit with a metallic click.
"I haven’t charged you for the consultation yet," Evelyn said.
Scarlett let out a small laugh. It was a brief sound, almost imperceptible over the engine noise. But it was real. Without sarcasm, without shields.
I watched her for a few seconds before turning my gaze back to the road, remembering the station.
"Why did you go down?" I asked in a low voice.
Scarlett turned her head slightly.
"Down where?" she asked.
"To the basement. When the shooting started," I said.
"I already told you," she replied coldly. "They were shooting at us."
"You could have stayed up top securing the perimeter. It was safer," I said.
"And let you go down alone into a tactical funnel. Sure," Scarlett said.
"Marcus was with me. He’s a professional," I said.
"That doesn’t change the equation much," Scarlett replied.
I looked at her directly, searching for a crack in her expression.
"Were you worried I’d get killed?" I asked.
Scarlett fell silent. Her jaw tensed slightly. I thought she wouldn’t answer, that she’d throw out another cutting comment to deflect the topic.
Finally, she let out a breath.
"You were the only one who knew how to get us out of there alive using your interface," Scarlett said.
"That wasn’t the question, Scarlett," I replied.
Her eyes met mine. The blue of her irises seemed to darken in the vehicle’s dimness.
"I didn’t want to see you die," she said.
There were no half-smiles or defensive jokes. She simply released the truth, raw and heavy, into the space between us.
Afterward, she broke eye contact and looked back out the window. I did the same. I didn’t have an adequate answer for that which didn’t sound hollow, so I didn’t force the conversation.
For now, knowing we had each other’s backs was more than enough.
Meanwhile, Elias remained apart from the group. He seemed like a ghost tormented by his own mind. I got up from my seat, taking advantage of Marcus having taken a straighter, more stable road, and sat in front of him.
"How are you?" I asked.
Elias looked at me, blinking slowly.
"Physically?" Elias asked.
"In general," I said.
"Tired. I feel like I haven’t slept in years," he replied.
"That seems to be contagious lately," I said.
A small, tired smile appeared on his face.
"I guess so," Elias said.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. I let him get used to my presence before pressing.
"I want to ask you something," I said finally.
"Go ahead," Elias replied.
"Your ability," I said.
Elias lowered his gaze to his dirty hands.
"Resonance Perception?" he asked.
"Yes. How does it work exactly?" I asked.
Elias hesitated, searching for the right words.
"I can’t explain it well. It’s not like seeing colors or hearing normal sounds," Elias said.
"Try. We need to understand what we’re facing," I said.
He closed his eyes, concentrating.
"When I look at someone... some people have a kind of noise around them," Elias said.
"Noise?" I asked.
"Yes. Like a vibration, a static frequency that shouldn’t be there. It saturates the air," he explained.
He opened his eyes and looked at me directly.
"With most humans, like Marcus or the doctor, I feel absolutely nothing. They’re silence," Elias said.
"And with the synchronized?" I asked.
"It’s different. The noise takes shape. It becomes a pattern," he said.
"And what do you see in me?" I asked.
Elias took a moment to respond. His expression became inscrutable.
"That’s precisely the problem, Gabriel," Elias said.
I frowned, feeling a pang of unease.
"What problem?" I asked.
"You don’t seem like a single connected person," Elias replied.
I froze completely.
"Explain yourself," I demanded.
Elias watched me, narrowing his eyes as if trying to focus on something blurry just behind my head.
"When I try to perceive you, when I try to read your resonance, I feel several things beating at the same time. Several distinct frequencies," Elias said.
"How many?" I asked.
"I’m not sure..." He closed his eyes again, and his face contorted from the effort. "Three. There are three sources in you," Elias said.
I felt a cold, almost painful vibration behind my eyeballs. I acted on instinct and opened the System. The scarlet holoscreen unfolded before me, invisible to the rest.
INTERNAL SYSTEM ANALYSIS
Internal resonance: Detected.
Identified patterns: 3.
Primary pattern: Stable (Active).
Origin: Survival Protocol (System interface).
Function: Tactical analysis, mission management, ability evolution.
Secondary pattern: Partially active (In dormant state).
Origin: Unknown Tower — Connection 01.
Function: Synchronization anchor. Currently locked at 10%. Dormant.
Tertiary pattern: Indeterminate (Access denied).
Origin: Unknown Entity — Connection 02.
Function: Unknown. The Entity that spoke during the synchronization event.
Warning: This pattern does not match any known classification. It predates the current Rupture event. Further data required.
I stared at the screen, my breath caught in my throat. Three patterns. The System. The Tower. And something else. Something the System couldn’t name. Something that had been with me since the beginning.
"What’s wrong?" Elias asked, noticing my sudden rigidity.
I closed the interface with a hurried blink.
"Nothing," I replied.
"You’re lying," Elias said.
"Can you also detect lies with your resonance?" I asked.
"No," he replied simply. "Your face is quite easy to read when you’re scared."
I let out a nervous laugh.
"I’ll have to work on that," I said.
Elias smiled slightly but quickly recovered his serious expression.
"Does your System show you graphic things? Texts?" Elias asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"Mine does none of that," he said.
"What does it do then?" I asked.
"It only lets me feel physical and energetic connections. Flows," Elias said.
"Between people?" I asked.
"People, places, the environment. Sometimes even inanimate objects," he explained.
"And can you know exactly what they are?" I asked.
"Not always. Most of the time it’s just a blind instinct." Elias raised a hand and pointed at my chest. "But with you there’s something radically different," he said.
"What?" I asked.
"I don’t know. It’s like you’re a broken receiver... or one that’s too perfect," Elias said.
I frowned, processing his words. A broken receiver. Or one that was too perfect.
"What about your synchronization?" I asked. "How long have you had it?"
Elias’s expression darkened.
"Months," he said.
"Months?" I repeated, surprised. "And you’re only at 4%?"
Elias nodded slowly.
"It doesn’t grow. It doesn’t evolve. It’s stuck." He looked at his own hands. "When they had me in the White Room, they tried to force it. They used machines. They used... other things. It didn’t work. My synchronization is frozen. Like something put a lock on it."
"A lock," I repeated.
"That’s what it feels like. Like there’s a ceiling I can’t break through." He looked at me. "But you... you’re different. Your synchronization grows. It evolves. The System adapts to you."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Because I can see it," Elias said simply. "Your flow is alive. Mine is dead."
The road began to narrow, filling with wild vegetation that devoured the asphalt. The abandoned, rusted buildings fell behind, giving way to a thick forest of gray trunks.
Marcus slowed the truck.
"We’re running out of easy road. We need to decide where we’re going now," Marcus said.
"The Bastion," Jonah said from the back, without letting go of Lena’s hand.
Marcus looked at him through the rearview mirror, skeptical.
"What the hell is that?" Marcus asked.
"A settlement. A big one," Jonah replied.
Darius sat up immediately, shaking the dust from his clothes.
"A real settlement?" Darius asked.
"Yes," Jonah said.
"With unmutated people?" Darius asked.
"With hundreds of people," Jonah replied.
"Electricity?" Darius asked.
Jonah nodded, his face severe.
"Part of the place has large diesel generators in operation," Jonah said.
Maya intervened from her tactical position:
"Potable water?" Maya asked.
"Filtered. They have a purification system connected to an underground river," Jonah replied.
"Food?" Maya asked.
"Rationed, but constant. They have greenhouses," Jonah said.