ARC10

Part I Chapter 1

The darkness is a good sign.

Nestled in the deepest shadow in the blackest hour on a dead-end street of a shattered city, I shrug and roll my shoulder to stretch a nagging ball of tension in my neck. Just as I breathe a little easier, a slim glimmer of moonlight wavers from behind the broken buildings. I coil up again.

Nothing moves. Not even the wind. Nothing rustles over the cracked road or through the crispy tips of burnt trees. Nothing disturbs the ashy scorch marks of a long-dead population that gaped at the apocalypse as it struck them from the sky. This night, like many, is as quietly comforting as a tomb. I raise my gaze again. Beyond my puffs of breath, I catch the stars blinking luminescent code. They inform me we're all clear. There's no sign of lurking Invaders.

Yet.

I shift my weight onto another foot, flinching as the crunch of debris under my boot resonates off the dilapidated building at my six. I peer at it over my shoulder. The United Region of Earth's Scavengers have been in there for hours. If they don't come out in the next thirty minutes, I'll be forced to climb the stairs and wrangle the idiots myself.

I'm not in the mood. My private conversations with the stars happen on such rare occasion, I'm loath to relinquish our time. I only have a few hours of freedom left before I'm sucked back into the desolate, steel-lined asshole of hell. 

No. I'd much rather be up here where every minute holds the wind-whispered promise of an agonizing death.

I wish this night could last forever.

No. Focus. 

The Scavs must be protected. It's my only mission.

Ten minutes pass. I glare at the structure's skeletal facade. Tonight's menu is a small tower—one that smiles with teeth made of jagged fragments from its formerly reflective surface. I frown at it in return.

Five minutes left. My black-and-gray Reaper uniform chafes my skin. I wiggle in place to alleviate the pinch against my thighs when I sense what I'd been dreading all night.

The wind picks up.

I lower my gray half-mask and take a deep breath, tasting the air. It's not like the natural winds I've experienced in the past—ones that supposedly come from clouds and lakes and mountains. This one stinks of metal.

I shift my rifle higher.

The little device attached to my palm vibrates furiously. I open my hand and check my Personal Analytics for Human Life Mechanism. The blue hologram activates, stretching to my fingertips and trickling down to my elbow like a glove. Bold white words appear over the pixelated surface, curving over the contours of my hand and wrist.

[Incoming Message: SCOPE TOP]

INVADERS INBOUND

IMMINENT CONTACT NORTHEAST

INCREASE POSTURE

EXFIL--OUTPOST BRAVO

I don't even think about the next steps—it's muscle memory from here on out. I pivot and bolt toward the building that holds my team.

As I approach the massive stairway, the squeal of rusted hinges punctuates the heavy thuds as Scavs and Reapers run toward me. They congregate in the courtyard, poised to escape. I proceed to headcount before ushering them along and flinch when I realize with pure dread—one's missing.

A civilian Scavenger—one whose father paid a hefty sum of creds for his son to join the official troop on this month's outing. He's still putzing around while we need to high-tail the hell out of here before the Invaders obliterate us all.