The clearing ahead instantly became a confusing maze of downed trees and boulders. At the center of this macabre tableau was Lux, still suspended between two of these monstrous hybrids. Their bony, metallic inner skeletons were partially exposed, wires and sinew intertwined in a horrific fusion of flesh and machine.

  The impact had sped up our plan, and the next move was mine. I broke cover, charging forward with my Rattler MK4 raised. The Cyborgs turned, their mechanical eyes zeroing in on me. As I closed the distance, I opened fire, the weapon's report echoing through the clearing.

  The plasma rounds tore into the Cyborgs, but they were only momentarily staggered. Their bio-enhanced bodies were built to endure. And they were advancing at a chilling, unrelenting pace.

  Sumo joined the fray, with my own Rattler barking death as we both targeted the Cyborgs' exposed mechanical parts. Then, using my Heidelberg tactical knife, I moved in close, and with lethal precision, severed wires and hydraulic lines with each swing.

  But the Cyborgs were unstoppable. They moved with a disturbing, jerky animation, their bodies enhanced with hydraulics and servos that gave them an edge in both strength and speed. One of them lunged at me, its arm chopping at me like a blade. I rolled aside, feeling the wind of its passing blow.

  I fired again, point-blank, shattering its metal clad-skull. As it fell, I turned to see another Cyborg seize Lux from behind. Reacting instantly, I shot it with a carnage round, severing its head off and saving the kid from being crushed in its vice-like grip.

  Sumo and I moved as we’d trained, covering each other’s backs, fighting not just for survival but for Lux. I could see him struggling against his restraints, his young face set in a mask of defiance.

  A Cyborg came out of the underbrush and caught me off guard, its fist connecting with my chest and sending me sprawling. I hit the ground hard, the air knocked out of me. As I gasped for breath, I saw Sumo leap onto it, his enhanced teeth and claws tearing into its flesh and machine, indiscriminately.

  Scrambling to my feet, I rejoined the fight. The Cyborgs were dwindling in number, but they fought with a desperation born of whatever twisted programming drove them. Another round of earthquakes threw all of us to our knees. I knew we were running out of time. The volcano was becoming unstable.

  As the red beacons on my HUD dwindled to only one, I leapt on its head, locking my powerful legs around its neck. I squeezed as hard as I could while it tried in vain to throw me off. Those back at the base had been drugged, these were not. I reached down and twisted the massive head until I heard a sickening pop.

  "That's for Riker, you asshole."

  As the last of them fell, the clearing fell silent, save for our heavy breathing. We were battered, covered in a mix of oil, blood, and dirt, but we were victorious. I knew the monsters hadn’t been my true enemy. The Earth itself was what was now going to kill me.

  Rushing to Lux, I tore off the restraints, catching him as he collapsed. “It’s okay, Lux. I got ya, buddy,” I assured him, though my voice was ragged from the fight.

  He clung to me; his relief palpable. We had won the battle, but this war seemed endless. As we regrouped, tending to our wounds and checking our ammo count, the reality of our situation settled in. This was more than a rescue mission; now it was a race against the clock to escape alive. Is it even possible to outrun an exploding super volcano?

  Ada’s voice was grave as she laid out the disaster scenario unfolding beneath our feet. “The super volcano is erupting. The primary magma chamber was breeched. Based on previous eruptions, they have all been massive, altering global climate and landscapes. We need to get out of this area immediately, Prowler.

  "The eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano will be a catastrophic event on a scale difficult to comprehend," Ada continued. "The initial explosion will eject thousands of cubic kilometers of rock and ash into the atmosphere, blanketing the surrounding area in a thick layer of hot debris."

  I kept moving, Lux in tow, as her words painted a grim picture of the looming disaster. "The immediate vicinity would be engulfed in pyroclastic flows, moving at high speeds and incinerating everything in their path."

  "Give me a safest path away from the lava and the ash flows."

  My HUD gave flickering paths of green that blinked red and were quickly replaced as she kept updating it with new information. I could tell there was no safe route out of here.

  That dark roiling mass was headed toward us now. Finally, a flickering amber line showed what must have been my AI's best guess. We began racing away. I completely deployed Lux and Sumo’s battlesuits to cover every inch of exposed flesh.

  "The ash cloud will spread across the United States," Ada continued, "disrupting travel, damaging infrastructure, and collapsing roofs under its weight. The finer ash particles would be carried by the winds across the continent and even beyond, potentially affecting global climate patterns.

  “The eruption may inject sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere, leading to a 'volcanic winter' scenario. The global temperature could drop significantly, affecting crop growth and leading to food shortages worldwide."

  Her analysis was clinical, methodical, yet the horror of what she described was stark. "The eruption could last for days to weeks, with aftershocks and secondary eruptions prolonging the event. The landscape of North America would be irrevocably altered, and the global climate impact could last for years, if not decades.

  The thought of such widespread devastation was almost too much to bear. It wasn't just our lives at stake; an eruption could signal an even worse global catastrophe.

  I tightened my grip on Lux, who was struggling to keep pace. "We need to get out of here, now!" The urgency in my voice mirrored the panic that was building inside me. "Ada, remove the suit safeties on the kid’s suit.” We needed to fucking move and had a lot of ground to cover.

  "Operational Safeties are off," she said moments later.

  As we continued our desperate trek away from the caldera, the reality of Ada's words weighed heavily on us. The danger was no longer just The Order or the Red Zone itself; we were up against a ticking time bomb of geological proportions.

  The race felt more desperate than ever. We had to escape the immediate danger, warn others, and somehow find a way to stop The Order. As we made our way out of the Yellowstone caldera, the magnitude of what we were up against was clearer than ever. We were battling not just The Order, but the very forces of nature.

  With Lux following closely, we hurried away from the impact site, the threat of a super volcano eruption hanging over us like a death sentence. Every step was a race against time, the ground occasionally shuddering in ominous agreement with Ada's predictions. Fire belched out, and I watched as tremendous fireballs were launched thousands of feet above us only to come crashing down seconds later. God, I do not want to be caught under one of those.

  The reality of our situation was stark. We were deep in one of the most treacherous places on Earth, with an active super volcano below and asteroids still raining from above. Hinge and his allies had successfully maneuvered me into the worst predicament of my life. This was turning into one effed up rescue mission.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY

  The kid’s close call with the Cyborgs was quickly forgotten as the rocky incline beneath us began to shake violently. The Yellowstone Caldera, long dormant and foreboding, was awakening with a roar that made my insides want to release. The air was thick with the scent of sulfur, and the sky darkened above us as ash clouds began to billow upwards even more. When it came down, we could not be under it, or we would be dead.

  I had stopped momentarily to swap hydration bottles in the kid’s suit. He was severely dehydrated. “Move! Now!” I shouted, the urgency clear in my voice. Lux, still reeling from his ordeal, stumbled back to his feet, and we all broke into a run. Sumo was at our side, not needing his enhanced senses to alert him to the imminent danger.

  Those first signs of the eruption were terrifying. Massive lava bombs erupted from the ground, hurtling through the air with deadly force. The heat was intense, scorching the air around us. We dodged and weaved, avoiding the fiery projectiles that crashed to the Earth with explosive force.

  Our suits were taking a beating. Rocks and debris pelted us relentlessly. I could hear the thuds and feel the jolts as the suit absorbed the impacts, the advanced materials straining under the onslaught. Heat sensors began going off, and to our rear, I could see a curtain of lava spewing high in the air.

  The landscape around us was transforming into an absolute hellscape. Parts of mountainsides began to slide away, the ground fracturing and splitting as the Earth’s fury was unleashed. At one point, the very ground we were running up began to slide toward the oncoming lava flow.

  "It's giving way, Lux. Go right!"

  We dodged diagonally and leapt to more stable ground. We were running through a nightmare, with the wrath of the planet itself unleashed upon us.

  “Priest, get the Wulf powered up and moving away at top speed! Head for the range of low mountains to the east!” I commanded through the TacComms. The Wulf, carrying Priest, Eira, and Koog was their only chance to avoid being engulfed by what was coming.

  Ada’s voice came through, strained yet composed. “Joe, even at top speed, the Wulf may not be fast enough. The range of mountains will provide some cover, but the eruption's magnitude is beyond anything even I anticipated.”

  "Call in that favor!" I shouted. And any prayers you may have as well, I said mentally.

  Her words were stark at how bad this shit was. The ground shook again, more violently, throwing us off balance. We stumbled but kept moving, driven by the certain knowledge that death was chasing us. As we raced towards the temporary safety of the mountain ridge ahead, the eruption behind us intensified. The sky was a canvas of fire and smoke, the sun completely blotted out by the ash cloud. Streaks of lightning clapped overhead. The heat was almost unbearable, a searing wave that threatened to overwhelm us at every step. Dante couldn't have envisioned a more perfect hell than this place.

  Lux, running beside me, was a blur of fear and determination. Despite his youth, he was keeping pace, driven by the same desperate need to escape that fueled Sumo and me.

  As we neared the mountaintop, the ground beneath us heaved in violent convulsions, opening up meter-wide fissures that threatened to swallow us whole. We leaped over chasms, the heat and steam from the Earth’s core blasting up in scorching gusts.

  Every second was a battle against time and the elements. The world around us was coming undone, a testament to the raw, unbridled power of the Earth.

  Fuck this bad…really goddamn bad. How in the hell had I walked into that fucking trap? I looked over at Carol's son and knew why. I was literally pushing the kid up a steep slope now. Both our boots dug deep into the loose soil.

  As we reached the far edge of the mountain, I could see down in the valley that the Wulf was miles ahead of us. The reality of our situation was clear. This was more than an escape; it was a race against the end of the world as we knew it. Our legs were burning, and I knew Lux was beyond exhaustion as well, but we pushed on, the valley below our only hope of refuge from the raging inferno pursuing us from behind. At times, I had to literally drag Lux and my dog up steeper paths, my fingers digging into the dark soil for any grip.

  The frenzied flight through the crumbling terrain was never-ending. Lux, Sumo, and I, now falling behind, risked becoming isolated and marooned in an inescapable lava field. The Earth's anger displayed no indications of slackening, and our options for escape were diminishing by the second.

  “Stay close to me, Lux!” I yelled over the roar of the eruption, my voice barely audible against the cacophony of destruction. Lux, his face smeared with ash and eyes wide with fear, nodded, sticking to my side like a shadow. I felt his gloved hand on my side as it was starting to get too dark to see.

  "I'm not sure I can, Joe."

  His words were ripping me apart from the inside while our flesh was beginning to cook from the outside. Our suits and the thermal layer of the Revix battleskin was doing all it could to protect us, but it was only a matter of time before it began to fail.

  "I'm going to goddam murder those bastards."

  Okay, rage is a very unhealthy motivator in most situations, but right now—it was what I needed. I'd been played. They hadn’t been able to beat me in a stand-up fight, so they came after those around me, the ones I cared about the most. I was going to make the bastards pay, and it was not going to be pretty.

  First, I had to survive the next ten minutes. The ground beneath our feet was treacherous, unstable, and shifting. We navigated through a landscape that was constantly changing, dodging falling rocks and leaping over gaping crevices that opened up without warning. The air was thick with ash and smoke, making it difficult to see and breathe. The suits’ filters were failing, and alerts were going off in many of the systems.

  The sounds of the volcano were deafening—the Earth groaned and rumbled, punctuated by the explosive sounds of lava bombs detonating around us. The heat was oppressive, a wall of searing air that threatened to overwhelm us.

  At one point, a massive lava bomb crashed near us, its impact sending a wave of burning embers, heat, and force that knocked us to the ground. I quickly checked Lux for injuries and was relieved to find him on his butt, shaken, but mostly unharmed. We scrambled to our feet and continued our desperate run.

  "Suit's environmental seals beginning to fail, Prowler."

  "Not helpful, Ada. Find us a clear path out of here. "

  As we pushed on, the realization that we were not going to make it became obvious. The Wulf, with its speed and protection, had been our best chance at a swift escape. Now, it was just Lux, Sumo, and me, alone in a landscape that seemed hell-bent on our destruction. The mountains seemed to go on forever. I knew I'd just traversed these same peaks hours ago but damn…I don't give up, I don't stop fighting, but goddamn, I didn't see a way out of this.

  “We need to keep moving, Lux! We can make it!” I lied, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Lux, showing a resilience beyond his years, nodded, and followed without hesitation. The ground was never level, up and down over and over. We were on all fours much of the time, fallen trees lay everywhere. More cracks opened before us, blocking one avenue of escape after another.

  The terrain became increasingly rugged as we approached the last large ridge. Steep inclines and rocky outcrops added to the challenge, but they also provided some cover from the raining debris. We used every bit of natural shelter we could find, pausing only briefly to catch our breath and to assess our surroundings.

  I kept a close eye on the terrain, looking for any signs of a safe passage or a shelter where we could wait out the worst of the eruption. But the reality was stark; there was no true safety in this situation. The super volcano’s eruption was a cataclysmic event, its reach and impact far beyond anything we could have prepared for.

  Nightfall came way earlier than it should have, the sky a canvas of fire and darkness. We found a small cave on the far side of a mountain. It was a temporary respite, a chance to gather our strength for the continued journey. The air inside was slightly cooler, a brief escape from the heat outside.

  Lux collapsed against the cave wall; exhaustion written all over his face. Sumo lay beside him, his sides heaving with each breath. I sat nearby, keeping watch at the cave entrance, my mind racing with plans and possibilities.

  "Hydrate," I ordered. "Eat something if you can." I offered Sumo one of his ration bars; he just looked at me. I had Ada trigger our suits to administer a drug cocktail that would help boost our recovery and pain tolerance. Giving drugs to a kid wasn't advised, but I was going to do everything I could to keep him alive.

  We were alone, cut off from the rest of the team, surrounded by a world coming apart at the seams. But we were still alive, still fighting. I drank water and made a plan, not one I was looking forward to, but one that was necessary. We could only shelter here for a few minutes as Ada kept updating me on the caldera’s expansion. With my helmet sleeved, the heat was already stifling, and we were miles away from the leading edge of the rupture.

  Goddamn bastards are going to pay, and Hinge will be top of my fucking hitlist, I thought.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-ONE

  The late evening light filtered weakly through the haze of ash and smoke, casting an eerie pall over the devastated landscape. Lux, Sumo, and I emerged from the cave, each of us nursing injuries from our harrowing escape. Lux was particularly weak, his youthful resilience battered beyond his limits by the ordeal. We needed to move, to get out of the blast zone, but it was clear that our current pace wouldn't be fast enough.

  I quickly took in the terrain ahead, a desolate expanse of destruction, with the caldera’s explosive fury still evident not that far behind us. Time was against us; the volcanic activity was not subsiding. In fact, it seemed to be intensifying, with the valley floor cracking and heaving around us, threatening to swallow us whole.

  An idea struck me, one that was risky, but necessary. I decided to slave Lux's battlesuit’s controls to mine. This way, his suit would mirror my movements and speed, effectively allowing him to keep pace with me as I ran. It was a makeshift solution, but it seemed our best shot at a swift escape.

  “Lux, I’m linking your suit to mine. It’ll move as I do. Just hold on,” I explained quickly, making the necessary adjustments on our suits' interface. His suit was smaller, so the AI would need to compensate constantly for his stride and reach.

  Lux nodded, understanding the plan. He was severely weakened from his ordeal, but his spirit was unbroken. “Got it,” he whispered hoarsely.