Somehow, the WitchWalker seemed to be holding the creatures at bay, much like she did back in Maine. This had to be what she was warning us about earlier, I thought. Still, her persuasion didn’t extend to everything, though. A Furie lurked in the shadows as the human-mechanical horror advanced toward us, seemingly unafraid of whatever firepower we had.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said, and yes, it sounded just as stupid to me, too. But you know, it was kinda human. I mean, parts of it anyway. It growled. A deep, ugly growl that made my bowels go all watery. Koog hit it with a plasma round in the chest, and I damn near froze when it simply looked down at the scorched skin and then back at us. It was damaged, although I saw metal plating underneath the flap of charred skin. Maybe it only looked to be human. Either way, I wasn't ready for Lux to be firing on humans. He was a kid. Okay, he’d fired on the invading force up on the Stone Mountain but…well, shit, no buts. He was back in the Warbot again. “Light ‘em up, kid,” I yelled.

  The Cyborg charged me. Sumo launched at the thing’s neck while I dropped low and fired up into its midsection. Okay, it was its groin, and well, not to get too technical, but yeah, it used to be a man, and it wasn’t wearing pants. It swung a mechanical arm out and connected with my chest so hard I thought it had split me in two. Fuck, everything here was so damn capable. We didn’t have time for a stand-up fight, and shit, if we had to battle every other hour, we’d never make it to the hill country. I eye-blinked to change armament types in my MK4.

  Carnage rounds did amazing things when they encountered solid objects. Mainly, they sliced right through them. The twin flechettes looked like a pair of electrical daggers connected by a small lightning bolt as they went downrange. Watching them in slow motion was a trip. This time they only partially penetrated the Cyborg’s abdomen, then somehow were deflected up and out through the back of the neck. The creature’s front half slid down with a sickening sound landing in a pile at the base of its metal legs.

  “Oh, God, I’m going to be sick,” I heard Koog say.

  “Incoming, Prowler,” Lux added helpfully. Needed to tell the kid to add a direction next time, but my suit already had the Furie painted red in the overlay. It was closing damn fast, but I was familiar with this enemy, having already killed dozens, hundreds— hell, I didn’t even know. Ada would have known.

  Sumo charged the creature, distracting it momentarily. I fired the Rattler on full auto, stitching a line of shots across its torso. I knew they wouldn’t be fatal. I eased off so the auto-targeting system could correct my sloppy marksmanship as Sumo tore a ragged hunk of flesh out of the thing's side. Then, Koog and I both found the mark as our rounds tore into the creature’s thigh muscles on each leg. It toppled and fell, its momentum sliding it to within a few yards of us.

  My dog trotted back to me, his tail wagging as if to say, ‘You see what I did there?’

  "Yeah, boy. Nice work, team," I said, raking back my helmet, then wiping the sweat from my brow. "Let's keep moving. We've got to get to someplace safer than this stretch of hell."

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  We'd been slogging through the wastelands for what felt like an eternity, every muscle in my genetically enhanced body cramping up.

  The setting sun cast long shadows that made the mutants and war-torn debris look even more like something out of a nightmare. My combat dog was on edge, too. His ears were perked up, and he kept growling softly under his breath. Good dog. He sensed what I sensed: trouble. Not another damn battle with the things. Jesus Christ, we hadn’t been dirt-side a full day, and already I was losing count of the skirmishes.

  Koog was lagging behind, still nursing his injuries, and Lux kept glancing nervously at the WitchWalker, the mute woman leading us through this hellscape. She moved with a purpose, but who the hell knew what she was really thinking. Or if she was thinking. Something on Last Day must have really screwed her up, or was she like this before? Maybe she escaped from an asylum or something.

  As for Ada, my in-brain super AI, she was still offline. Would've been useful to have some intel right about then, but no such luck. So, I was left with my thoughts, which weren’t particularly uplifting at the moment. I did occasionally hear bursts of white noise, almost like coming from a great distance. I knew it was on my internal comms, maybe someone trying to get through, but who knows?

  Is this what it had come to? Me, a nearly indestructible fighting machine, leading a motley crew of damaged goods through a world gone mad? The old me would make some snarky comment, but I wasn’t in the mood. Hadn’t been for a while. I even missed my dad’s verbal abuse. Hell, it’s one of those things you think you hate until it’s gone. I smiled thinking about some of the crazy shit he’d said over the years. My smile was alien in this place, all humor, all life had been picked clean from the bones of humanity. The vines had pulled the scraps down into the bowels of Earth. At this point, even a snarky quip from Pops would be a welcome distraction. When you're longing for a dad-joke in the middle of an apocalypse, you know you've hit a new low. My parents definitely should have chipped in on therapy for me.

  “Keep us in the fight, Joe.”

  That was what Xero had said to me days earlier. “Humanity is going extinct down there. We need you to keep us in the fight.”

  I liked noble causes. Hell, I usually rooted for the underdog, but this shit was wearing all the sharp edges off me. In time, it would grind me down to a lump of nothing. Somehow, I had to fight all that shit off, focus on the mission, focus on the kid. One goddamn day at a time. That’s how we get through this shit. Every fucking step in this place seemed to bring on another battle. That's why it's a goddamn Red Zone, dumb-ass. Humans aren't supposed to be here.

  We were on the move again when the Witch suddenly halted, her gaze fixed on something in the distance. It was unsettling how she did that—staring at things only she could see. But then, ever so slightly, she tilted her head eastward toward what might have once been a structure, maybe a church or, shit…I don’t know. A shattered landscape lay between us and it, whatever it was.

  I caught her drift. No words needed. Sometimes a simple gesture was enough. Looked like we were heading that way, towards that skeletal outline of the structure. The Witch had spoken—well, not literally, but you get what I mean.

  I picked up the pace, and as we marched toward the dark, broken skyline, clouds began rolling in. My mind wandered again to Damiana Voss. She was somewhere in France, doing God knew what. Would have been nice to talk with her, let her know about Carol. She saw something in this girl we were following, something I did not. A value or trust that she could be helpful. Shit, she could have been leading us to our own slaughter, but even I had to admit, the journey had been better than I expected. Shoot, nothing survived out here, so the few minor battles we’d had so far were nothing.

  My nerves were on edge, something I’d learned to trust long ago. “Lux, look alert.” My hand instinctively went to the Rattler at my back, mag-locked and ready to unleash hell. It was ironic. I was armed to the teeth, enhanced to the point of being a one-man army, but sometimes it was my own thoughts that were the enemy.

  The tumble-down buildings were beginning to come into view. My enhanced eyesight could pick out details long before the rest of my team. Still, I had no idea what I was looking at. It wasn’t ruins, but walls of massive rock work over an old-style exposed wood post and beam structure. Maybe a lodge or something. It looked solid and old. Being the only structure still mostly intact, I expected trouble.

  I tightened the grip on my weapon and focused on the path ahead. Whatever was waiting for us in that haunted structure, it would have to wait a little longer. We'd get there when we got there, and not a moment sooner. At the moment, each step forward felt like a step further into my own personal dread. Yeah, I had enhancements out the wazoo, but what was the point if the world you're supposed to protect is gone to shit?

  Yet, we moved on. Sometimes that was all you could do. Keep moving. Keep fighting. Even when the world's gone mad, and it’s taking you along with it.

  We finally reached the outskirts of what used to be a town. But calling this a ‘town’ was being generous. It was more like a graveyard of human ambition—a landscape filled with skeletal buildings and decaying dreams. Lux, riding inside the Warbot with the cockpit door open, looked at me with wide eyes. Even the kid knew this wasn’t the kind of place you'd want to take a Sunday stroll.

  "Stay sharp, kid," I told him. "And stay close."

  As if on cue, I heard Koog grunt in pain, reminding us that he was still human under all that armor and grit. I glanced over at him. "You good?"

  "I've been better, Boss," he said, gritting his teeth. “I can do the job.”

  I knew the Marine was still eager to prove himself, but he was mortal. Apparently, unlike me. I still hadn’t unpacked that little fact. I mean, you know…coming back from the dead and all. I wasn’t particularly religious, but still, I guess, I expected, you know—something. Where I was had been dark, wet, and cold, and I didn’t feel like I was alone. Somewhere deep down in the meatsack part of my brain, I knew there was more to that episode, but I couldn’t bring it into focus. Still, the eeriness of this place was making me feel that way again.

  We moved cautiously into the ghost town. Every snap of a twig or crunch of debris underfoot amplified the tension. Our rifles were gripped tight, ready to bring on a world of hurt. But nothing happened. It was too quiet, and that was what worried me the most. Sumo was in a high guard position, not his normal scout and patrol, something had him spooked as well.

  “Easy, boy,” I whispered into his own comms channel.

  Right when I thought we'd caught a break, I noticed the girl. She was shaking or bobbing side to side, slightly at first but becoming more pronounced. She didn’t stop this time, but I could see it—the subtle tension in her movements, the way her eyes darted around as if sensing invisible threats.

  Koog asked me the obvious question, “Should I shoot her now?”

  “Fucking beats me, kid. She's our canary in the coal mine, and right now, she's telling us that there’s something janky even to her about this place.”

  She shifted her path subtly, avoiding a particular pile of rubble that my instincts told me to avoid, too. We skirted around it, and as we passed, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that we just passed a test, or maybe dodged a bullet is a better analogy. Thunder rumbled, and I saw a wall of approaching rain. The Witch was the only one exposed to the elements. If it bothered her, she showed no sign.

  We reached the center of the town, or at least what used to be the center. It was a large clearing now, filled with debris and the ashes of whatever the fuck was around here. But there, amid the ruins, stood the old lodge. It was weathered and beaten but still standing. Somehow, that gave me a sliver of hope.

  "Looks like a good place to hunker down for the night," I suggested.

  My foot raised as I was about to take a step toward the building, but the Witch blocked my path. She turned her head to the east again and made a subtle, beckoning gesture with her head.

  "Another vision, huh?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

  She didn’t respond, of course. But her message was clear. The rock-walled lodge may offer some refuge, but the real answers lay farther down the path she was pointing to. It was a gamble, but then again, what wasn’t those days?

  My eyes met hers briefly, and for the first time, I saw something there—recognition, maybe understanding. It was as if she knew the weight I was carrying and was telling me it was okay to put it down, even if it was only for a night.

  "We push on at first light," I decided. "But for now, we rest."

  We made our way into the back entrance of the lodge, which appeared to have been converted into a makeshift church. My boots scraped on broken glass and debris littering the floor, but the space was comparatively clear. My visor was down, and I was sweeping on all spectrums, our rifles still at the high-ready, but the tension eased a bit. As I settled in for the night, I couldn’t help but wonder what tomorrow would bring. But whatever it was, I knew we'd face it together.

  And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

  The first light of dawn filtered through the shattered, once ornate windows high above, casting a mosaic of fractured colors over our weary group. Lux, restless from the night, eagerly wolfed down some calories, then clambered up to his position within the cockpit of the Decimator. Seconds later, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a video game coming from the thing. Jesus, he hacked into the code, or maybe a multi-million-dollar piece of ordinance just happened to come with a video game installed, hell, I don’t know. The kid had a natural knack for tech—a rare and hopeful sign in these dark times.

  Koog was up, looking a bit better but still wincing with every movement. Sumo stretched, nose twitching at unseen scents. The Witch simply sat there, quiet and mysterious, her gaze fixed on something far beyond these walls. Over one of the sealed doors leading back deeper into the facility I saw something scrawled. ‘The inmates are running the asylum.’ Alongside it was the number 12 and several symbols I filed away to consider later.

  I knew that was a line from an old movie, a really old one, but what flashed through my mind were the spooky-ass chambers beneath the Ranier facility. What they’d imprisoned down there were their own creations and yes, now they were running the place up here. I wasn’t sure that was what the words meant, but it wasn’t far off.

  I grabbed my Glisson MK4 Rattler from where it was mag-locked to my back, checking it over. The weapon felt like an extension of my own body—cold, metallic, and deadly. Just like me, ha! I laughed at my own catch phrase. So damn corny. And right on the mark, my pop’s voice cut through the silence.

  “Keeping your phone on ‘Do not disturb’ or you forget to pay the bill again?”

  “Hi, Pops,” I said, shrugging into the rest of my gear. “I’ve crashed in a Red Zone, seems like a comms blackout as well. Ada is offline and…” I was way too pumped to finally have a comms signal, and my mouth was outpacing my brain.

  “Can you hear me now?” came the tinny response. Oh shit, I was losing him.

  “Dad? Pops!”

  “I’m here, junior. Don’t wet yourself, I just like screwing with ya.”

  “No shit,” I muttered. Still, Thank God we had comms again.

  “Why you land out in the waste? Don’t you know those places are dangerous?”

  “No, hadn’t heard that, Pops,” I verbally slung back to his side of the net, unable to help myself. “Look, we need help, I need a dropship, ground transport. Fuck, a bicycle even.”

  I heard him mumble something just beyond my hearing. Or the signal was cutting out.

  “Didn’t catch that.”

  “I’m eating lunch,” he yelled.

  “Oh…sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your routine or anything, but we could use some freaking help.”

  “These damn tomatoes aren’t even ripe. I mean, we live in the goddamn sunshine state, hottest fucking summer on record, and what, are they shipping these damn things in from the South Pole?”

  “Unripe tomatoes, Dad, that’s the main concern.”

  “Well, no, Joe, the local golf club is also overrun by flying alligators but shit, I’m not eating those at the moment.”

  Fuck this, let me go shoot myself. “Okay, Pops, but some help.”

  “You gave up the high ground, son. I thought we had an agreement on that.”

  “It was unintentional,” I offered weakly.

  “And your team?”

  I looked around me. “They are partially here.”

  “Bullshit,” he spat out.

  I could still hear him mumbling about the produce. “Any connections you have, Dad. Anyone you can reach out to.”

  “Yeah, ok, I am going to call the manager down at the market first. He needs to fix this shit.”

  “Is that yeah to me?”

  “Pop?”

  “Dad?”

  “Fuck, he’s gone.” I tapped the spot on the side of my head. “Ada, are you there…please!”

  Still nothing. I had no idea if my father could help or not. I did feel slightly better about things, but damn. That man was infuriating.

  An hour later, we were on the move, the Decimator's heavy steps setting the rhythm of our march. The WitchWalker led, her intuition acting as our guide through the crumbling vestiges of civilization. Lux, safely ensconced in his metal giant, followed closely, his youthful enthusiasm barely contained within the hulking frame.

  Our path took us through streets choked with thunder vine overgrowth and decay, past buildings that whispered tales of a world that once was. This land must have been mainly farmland. I saw rusting Agrobots dotting the nearby prairie like mute sentries. I kept scanning for threats, trying to stay sharp, listening for any signs of the mutants or rogue robots that now claimed these lands as their own.

  But it wasn’t the physical threats that weighed heaviest on me—it was the haunting emptiness. The absence of life, of laughter, of love. It was a void that gnawed at me, a reminder of what we'd lost—and what I still needed to find. My pops had challenged me to ‘Be better,’ I thought I was beginning to know what he meant. Not the super-soldier part of who I was, but the human being.

  As we walked, my mind gave me the virtual middle finger by wandering back to Carol, to the fun we had shared. Her laughter, her fire, her unyielding spirit. Lux was her living legacy, a responsibility I'd taken on without fully considering what that meant. But it was more than duty; it was a chance to hold on to a piece of her, to make sure her light continued to shine in this darkened world. And yes, I did cheat on her with Voss last time I was dirt-side, and that was an asshole move, but even she said Carol wouldn’t mind sharing. I’d never been quite brave enough to ask her about that and, well…now it was too late.

  Then there was Damiana Voss, who last I saw was pairing up with Captain Hauk on an insane plan to rescue his brother in northern France. Our history was complicated, to say the least. Voss and me, not Hauk and me, although that one seemed off as well. With Voss, though…wow. Moments of passion tangled with months of contention. I found myself wondering if she was safe, what battles she was fighting. Her presence, even as a memory, brought a mixture of comfort and conflict. I needed to know more about the ‘Sisters of Light.’ Her organization was a near total mystery. One I felt like I needed to unravel.