The badlands stretched endlessly before them — a graveyard of iron and dust.
What had once been highways were now nothing but splintered ribbons of asphalt, half-buried under sand and bone. The wind carried the faint stench of metal decay and ozone, the ghosts of old wars that never really ended.
24 led the way in silence, his pace steady, deliberate.
Every few hours he'd stop, scan the horizon, and listen — to the wind, to the ground, to the distant hum of the world still bleeding under EGI's machines.
Lu followed just behind, her eyes sharp despite the fatigue setting in. The training from the past weeks had hardened her — her movements were quieter now, her breathing controlled, her steps echoing his without thought.
"Feels like this whole place got swallowed by the war," she murmured.
"It did," 24 said. "And the war hasn't stopped. It just ran out of people."
By midday, they crossed a stretch of cracked earth where the remnants of machines lay like bones.
A downed drone, its rotors long stripped by scavengers, lay half-sunk in a dune.
Nearby, an EGI soldier's exo-frame — rusted through, its helmet cracked — stared blankly at the sky, flowers pushing through its ribbed armor.
Lu slowed, crouching beside it. "This one's old.
Model looks pre-collapse."
24 gave it a quick glance. "The early ones. Heavy, inefficient. Still lethal."
He nudged the skull aside with his boot, uncovering the EGI insignia burned into the plating.
The sight made his jaw tighten.
"You ever fought in one of those?" Lu asked.
"Fought against them," he said.
"Until they started putting people inside."
Her head turned sharply. "Inside?"
24's eyes stayed on the horizon. "That's how the project began."
He didn't explain further. He didn't need to.
The silence that followed said everything.
By the second night, the wind grew colder, sharper. They set camp beneath a collapsed overpass, the skeletal remains of old road signs rattling in the breeze.
Lu leaned back against her pack, eyes on the faint glimmer of distant lights far to the west.
"You think that's them?"
24 studied the faint glow — steady, rhythmic. "No. Too clean. Probably EGI patrol lights.
The resistance won't waste power on being seen."
He reached for the small fire they'd built between stones, keeping the flames low.
The warmth painted his face in flickers of orange, catching the old scars that crossed his jaw.
"You ever met anyone from the resistance?" Lu asked quietly.
"Once."
"What were they like?"
He paused for a long time before answering.
"Like ghosts pretending to still be human."
Lu frowned. "That sounds like you."
24's lips curved into the faintest trace of a smile. "Exactly."
By dawn of the third day, they reached the outskirts of what looked like an abandoned military depot — massive concrete walls rising from the dust, half-collapsed towers ringed with barbed wire and old floodlights.
The place was silent. Too silent.
24 crouched low, signaling for Lu to stop.
"You feel that?"
She frowned, concentrating. "The air's… heavy."
"Pressure sensors," he muttered. "Old tech, but still active."
They moved slower, keeping to the shadows of the fallen structures.
The closer they got, the more signs of life they saw — not open, but hidden.
Tracks. Footprints in the sand. Bullet casings recently fired.
And in one corner, smoke rising faintly through a vent — too controlled to be an accident.
Lu whispered, "We found them."
24's eyes narrowed. "They found us first."
The metallic click came from behind them — quiet, professional.
24 didn't turn. His hand moved only an inch toward his blade before a voice spoke from the shadows.
"That's far enough."
From the wreckage stepped three figures — armored in scavenged plates and old military gear, their faces hidden behind dust masks and goggles. Their weapons were real, functional, and steady.
The lead figure's voice was low, female, firm.
"State your business."
24 didn't move. "Just travelers. Heard there was a settlement out this way."
"Who told you?"
"A man in the ruins east of here. Said you were resistance."
A long pause. Then, the woman tilted her head slightly.
"Maybe we are. Or maybe we're just ghosts."
Lu glanced at 24. "Sounds familiar."
He almost smiled. "It does."
The woman's gun stayed steady, but her stance shifted — testing, reading them.
"You're not EGI," she said finally. "You move too quiet."
"We're not with them," 24 replied. "And we're not against you. Just need a place to disappear for a while."
Another silence — long, tense, filled with unspoken weight. Then, finally, the woman lowered her weapon slightly.
"You want to disappear?" she said.
"Then you came to the right graveyard."
She gestured toward the ruins behind her.
"Welcome to Outpost Nine."