Days before the scavenger team's collapse near the old warehouse, the wasteland breathed in muted colors—gray and pale blue beneath a dying sky.
Korren's camp crouched in the shadow of a broken overpass, its fires giving off more smoke than heat. Sparks leapt against the wind, disappearing into the haze.
"They vanish like ghosts," Korren muttered, eyes tracing the map spread before him. "No pattern. No heat trails. No footprints. Nothing."
Across the fire, Nyla sat cross-legged, her rifle balanced across her knees. The glow of the embers flickered across her face—sharp cheekbones, eyes like winter glass.
"Maybe they are ghosts," she said, not looking up. Her tone was light, but her hands trembled slightly when she cleaned the weapon.
Korren's mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. "No. Ghosts don't move with this kind of precision. They're hidden behind science that outlived the people who made it."
He leaned over the map, fingers tracing faded lines. "A technology older than our faith, still running. That's what we're chasing."
The camp was quiet. The only sounds were the wind scraping over rusted metal and the distant hum of unseen drones.
When night fell, rain began to whisper—a thin drizzle that painted everything in silver ash. Talgat sat apart from the others, sharpening his retractable blade beneath a tattered canopy. The rhythm of steel on stone mixed with the soft hiss of rainfall.
Behind him, Nyla adjusted the scope on her rifle for the third time. "Still pretending you're not nervous?" she asked quietly, her voice half-teasing, half-afraid.
Talgat didn't look up. "And you still talk too much before a job."
She smirked. "Someone has to. You'd sit in silence until you rust."
He slid the blade back into its sheath. "Maybe that's how you stop being afraid."
Nyla fell quiet. For a moment, the rain filled the space between them—gentle, constant, like breath. Then, softer this time, she said, "If you get caught out there… I'll shoot whoever touches you. Then I'll kill you myself for being stupid."
Talgat turned toward her, the faintest smile touching his lips. "That's why I trust you."
Her eyes flicked away immediately, her expression unreadable. "Idiot," she muttered, though the word came out more like a prayer.
Korren's voice broke through the moment—low, deliberate, the tone of command.
"Talgat," he said, stepping from the shadows, rain running off his coat. "You'll be the stray tonight. Let them think you're one of the lost—someone hunted by our men. Run from the metro ruins toward the old warehouse district. We'll weaken the beams ahead of time to funnel them. Only one way in, one way out."
Talgat nodded. "And if they don't help me?"
Korren's gaze didn't waver. "Then you die. But we'll finally know where their ghosts sleep."
He turned away, his profile lit by the campfire's glow.
"Prepare the mock lair," he ordered. "Use the debris and bones. Make it look lived in—but abandoned just long enough to feel real."
The men moved in silence, efficient and obedient.
As Korren watched them, rain traced clean lines across his scarred face. His reflection wavered in a puddle near his boots—half man, half phantom.
Interlude – The Ghost Wall
By dawn, the rain had stopped. The air hung heavy with static, the scent of ozone clinging to the earth.
Nyla crouched beside Talgat as his handheld scanner pulsed pale green over the ruined ground. Its readings flickered erratically.
"Nothing," he muttered, tapping the side of the device. "It's like the terrain's eating the signal."
Korren approached from behind, silent as the shifting dust. "Not eating," he said. "Bending."
Nyla frowned, adjusting her scope. The land ahead shimmered faintly—heat mirage where there should be cold air.
"Visual distortion?" she murmured. "Like a hologram?"
Korren shook his head. "More than that. A projection overlay—AI-maintained. The air's thick with ionized particles refracting light and sound. Old-world stealth architecture."
He knelt, brushing a gloved hand across the cracked ground. "See those pinholes? Drone emitters. Buried and networked. They project a full-spectrum illusion grid powered by thorium microcells. Adaptive recalibration every few milliseconds."
Talgat watched him. "You're saying someone kept it running? For centuries?"
Korren's thin smile returned. "Someone… or something smart enough to maintain it. A veil like this doesn't survive without active correction. It's being fed data—constantly."
He drew a knife from his belt and threw it into the shimmer. The blade vanished midair with a faint pop—and seconds later, dropped two meters away, the edge warped and smoking.
"Phase refraction layer," Korren said quietly. "Not a wall. A curtain. It converts everything behind it into optical noise and dead EM return. To sensors, it's void. To human eyes—just dust."
Nyla swallowed. "So that's why the scavengers disappear. They walk straight through it."
Korren nodded. "And now we know where."
He stood, wiping rain from his brow. His voice dropped to a whisper. "We'll find the seam where the field refreshes. When it resets, we move through before the AI stabilizes the cycle."
He turned to the others. "But not tonight. Let them think they're untouchable one more day."
As he walked back toward camp, the horizon glowed faint blue—like the breath of something vast and dreaming beneath the surface.
Nyla watched Talgat watching him, both silent in the fading storm.
Finally, she said, "You think he ever sleeps?"
Talgat didn't answer. His eyes stayed fixed on the shimmer ahead.
"If he does," he murmured, "I don't think he dreams."