Plovdiv appeared like a ghost in the fog.
It wasn't a ruin. It wasn't bombed out like Rome or Antioch.
It was perfectly preserved.
Modern skyscrapers of glass and steel rose from the white plain. But the snow had swallowed them. Drifts piled up to the third-story windows. The streets were canyons of ice.
There was no sound. No wind here. Just a dead, suffocating silence.
"Board Model City 4," Lucilla whispered. Her breath fogged the window. "Built for the executives. Climate controlled. Luxury automated living."
"It looks dead," Marcia said.
[SCANNING FOR HEAT SIGNATURES...]
[RESULT: NEGATIVE.]
[SCANNING FOR ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES...]
[RESULT: NEGATIVE.]
"It's empty," Marcus said. "No guards. No patrols."
"It's a trap," Marcia said instantly. "Titus wouldn't leave a supply depot unguarded."
"We don't have a choice," Marcus replied. He pointed to the dashboard thermometer.
[EXTERNAL TEMP: -18°C.]
[LEGION HYPOTHERMIA: 45%]
"Half the Legion is frostbitten," Marcus said. "If we don't get inside in an hour, we start losing fingers. Then toes. Then lives."
The convoy rolled into the city.
The main avenue was blocked. A wall of snow ten feet high stretched across the street. Buried within it were cars—luxury sedans, frozen in place since the bombs fell ten years ago.
"We can't get through," Marcia said. The Rover's wheels spun uselessly on the ice.
"Narcissus," Marcus said into the radio. "Clear the path."
The lead truck's door opened.
The giant stepped out.
Narcissus looked at the wall of snow and steel.
He walked forward. He lowered his shoulder.
BOOM.
He hit the first frozen car. It was a sports coupe encased in ice.
Narcissus flipped it. The car went airborne, crashing into a storefront window. Glass shattered.
He grabbed the next one—an SUV. He dragged it sideways, his metal boots grinding sparks on the pavement beneath the ice.
The convoy crawled behind him, moving in his wake like ducklings.
Marcus watched Narcissus work. The cyborg was slowing down. The hydraulic fluid in his joints was thickening. His movements were jerky.
Narcissus reached a sedan buried deep in the drift. He ripped the door off to get a better grip.
He froze.
"Marcus," Narcissus rumbled over the comms. "Look."
Marcus leaned out the window.
Inside the sedan, there was a driver. A woman in a business suit. She was perfectly preserved. Her skin was blue, covered in frost crystals. Her hands were still gripping the wheel. Her mouth was open in a silent scream.
She was a statue of ice.
"Drive past it," Marcus ordered. "Don't let the men look."
But they looked.
As they passed the car, every refugee in the trucks stared at the frozen woman. It was a mirror. That was their future.
They pushed deeper into the city.
"There," Lucilla pointed.
Ahead, a massive warehouse sat separate from the towers. It had no windows. The walls were reinforced concrete.
Painted on the side was the Board logo: A golden pyramid.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: REGIONAL LOGISTICS HUB.]
And there was something else.
Smoke.
A thin wisp of gray smoke rose from a vent on the roof.
"Heat," Galen whimpered from the back of Truck 5. "They have a generator running!"
The reaction was instant.
"HEAT!" someone yelled from the trucks.
"GO! GO!"
The discipline cracked. The refugees started banging on the sides of the trucks. They were desperate. The promise of warmth broke their training.
"Hold!" Marcus barked into the radio. "Stay in formation!"
But the trucks were already speeding up, slipping on the ice, rushing toward the warehouse.
They skidded to a halt in front of the loading dock.
Before Marcus could stop them, the refugees were jumping out. They stumbled through the snow, running toward the steel doors.
"Wait!" Marcus jumped out of the Rover. "Decimus! Hold them back!"
Decimus tried. He grabbed a man by his tunic. "Form up! Secure the perimeter!"
The man shoved Decimus away. "I'm freezing! Let me in!"
They pounded on the metal doors.
Marcus drew his vibro-gladius. The hum of the blade was the only sound in the square.
"BACK!" Marcus roared.
The crowd flinched. They turned to look at him.
"You run in there blind, you die," Marcus snarled. "We clear it first. Squad One, with me. Marcia, rear guard. Narcissus, break the door."
The refugees stepped back, shivering violently.
Narcissus walked up the ramp.
He didn't knock.
He punched the lock mechanism. The steel crumpled. He grabbed the edges of the doors and pulled.
SCREEEECH.
The doors slid open.
A wave of air hit them.
It wasn't cold. It was warm. Beautifully, impossibly warm.
The refugees moaned. It was the smell of life.
"Clear," Narcissus grunted. He stepped inside.
Marcus followed, sword raised.
The warehouse was cavernous. High ceilings. industrial lights buzzed overhead.
But it was wrong.
"Where are the crates?" Marcia asked, stepping up beside him. Her shotgun was leveled.
The shelves were there. Rows and rows of industrial racking.
But they were empty.
Stripped. Bare metal. No coats. No heaters. No food.
"It's empty," Decimus whispered. "It's all gone."
The refugees crowded into the doorway. They stopped. The hope drained out of their faces, replaced by a horror deeper than the cold.
"Look at the center," Marcus said.
In the middle of the empty warehouse floor, there was a single wooden chair.
Sitting on the chair was a mannequin. It was dressed in a pristine, thick, fur-lined Board officer's coat.
On the mannequin's lap sat a small black radio.
And a red light was blinking on it.
[SIGNAL DETECTED.]
"Get out," Marcus whispered.
"What?" Marcia looked at him.
"IT'S A TRAP! GET OUT!" Marcus screamed.
He turned and shoved the nearest refugee back toward the door.
CLICK.
The radio turned on.
Static filled the warehouse. Then, the voice. Smooth. Cultured.
"Welcome to Plovdiv, Caesar."
General Titus.
"I told you the cold was treacherous," the voice boomed from the radio. "But hope? Hope is worse."
KLANG.
The massive steel doors behind them slammed shut.
Magnetic locks engaged with a thud that shook the floor.
"Narcissus! The door!" Marcus yelled.
The giant spun around. He hammered his fists against the steel.
BANG. BANG.
The metal dented, but it didn't break. These weren't blast doors; they were containment bulkheads.
"We are sealed in!" Narcissus roared.
"Look up!" Galen screamed.
High above them, near the ceiling lights, the ventilation shafts opened.
HISS.
White gas began to pour out. It fell like a heavy curtain, heavier than air.
It hit the floor and spread instantly.
The temperature plummeted.
[WARNING: RAPID TEMPERATURE DROP.]
[AGENT: LIQUID NITROGEN COOLANT.]
[TEMP: -50°C AND FALLING.]
"It's a freezer," Marcus realized. "He's flash-freezing us."
The gas hit the first line of refugees.
They didn't even scream. The air in their lungs froze instantly. They fell to their knees, clutching their throats.
"Masks!" Marcus yelled, but he knew they didn't have masks.
"The heaters!" Marcia pointed to the industrial units on the walls.
They weren't heaters. They were reversed. They were pumping the heat out.
"Narcissus!" Marcus grabbed the cyborg. "The wall! Smash the wall!"
"It is reinforced concrete!"
"I DON'T CARE! MAKE A DOOR!"
Narcissus charged the side wall. He didn't punch. He used his entire body as a battering ram.
CRASH.
Concrete cracked. Dust flew. But the rebar held.
"Again!" Marcus screamed.
The white fog was rising. It was at ankle height. Then knee height.
Where it touched, flesh turned gray.
A child slipped. He fell into the fog.
His mother dove after him.
"No!" Decimus lunged, grabbing the woman's belt. He pulled her back.
She came up screaming. Her hands were white. Frostbitten instantly.
The child didn't come up.
"JARVIS!" Marcus shouted in his mind. "HACK THE VENTS!"
[ACCESSING BUILDING CONTROL.]
[FIREWALL DETECTED: MILITARY GRADE.]
[BYPASSING... 10%...]
"TOO SLOW!"
Marcus looked at the mannequin in the center of the room. Mocking them.
The radio laughed.
"Die well, Romans. Make beautiful statues."
Marcus felt the cold seeping through his boots. His toes were numb.
He looked at the Rover, parked just inside the door. Marcia had driven it in.
"Marcia!" Marcus grabbed her arm. "The battery!"
"What?"
"The Rover's battery! It's a lithium-ion bomb! Overload it!"
Marcia's eyes went wide. "It'll kill us!"
"The nitrogen will kill us faster! Blow the wall!"
Marcia scrambled into the driver's seat.
"JARVIS!" Marcus screamed. "Override safeties! Dump the whole charge into the motor capacitors! NOW!"
[WARNING: CATASTROPHIC FAILURE IMMINENT.]
[DO IT.]
The Rover began to whine. A high-pitched shriek.
Sparks flew from the undercarriage. The display dashboard exploded.
"EVERYONE DOWN!" Marcus tackled Decimus.
Marcia dove out of the car, rolling across the concrete.
Narcissus grabbed a sheet of metal shelving and threw it over the refugees as a shield.
The Rover glowed white hot.
BOOM.
The explosion was deafening.
A fireball of chemical energy erupted. It wasn't just heat; it was force.
The blast wave hit the wall Narcissus had cracked.
The concrete shattered. The rebar snapped like spaghetti.
A hole the size of a truck blew open to the outside world.
Smoke and fire swirled with the freezing nitrogen gas.
"OUT!" Marcus coughed, waving his sword. "GO! GO!"
The refugees scrambled over the rubble. They fell into the snow outside.
It was -18°C outside.
Inside, it was -60°C.
Compared to the trap, the winter felt like a warm breeze.
They tumbled out, coughing, shivering, alive.
Marcus came out last. He dragged Marcia. Narcissus covered the rear.
They lay in the snow, gasping.
The warehouse burned behind them. The flames licked at the nitrogen fog, creating a weird, swirling storm.
Marcus stood up. He was shaking. Not from fear. From the cold that had almost eaten his bones.
He looked at the burning building.
He looked at the refugees. They were alive. But they were crying. The child was gone. The coats were gone.
They had nothing.
"He played us," Marcia hissed. She wiped soot from her face. "He knew we would come."
Marcus looked at the fire.
"He wanted statues," Marcus said. His voice was a growl.
He turned to the shivering Legion.
"Get up," Marcus said softly.
Then louder.
"GET UP!"
They looked at him. Broken.
"He thinks we are dead!" Marcus yelled. "He thinks he won!"
Marcus walked to the burning wreck of the Rover. He reached into the flames. His nanites surged to protect his skin.
He pulled out a piece of jagged metal. It was glowing red hot.
He held it up. A torch.
"We don't need his coats!" Marcus screamed. "We have his fire!"
He pointed the burning metal toward the north. Toward the mountains.
"He wants to play games? Fine."
"JARVIS. Track the signal."
[SOURCE LOCATED. RELAY TOWER 4. 10 MILES NORTH.]
"We aren't running anymore," Marcus said.
He looked at Narcissus. The cyborg was dented, covered in ice and soot.
"Can you walk, brother?"
Narcissus stood up. He looked like a demon rising from hell.
"I can run," the giant said.
"Good," Marcus said.
"Because we are going hunting."