The service hatch sealed shut behind them with a soft click. Asher led the way down the narrow corridor. His boots made quiet sounds on the clean white floor. The place looked nothing like the old capital bunkers. No rust. No cracked concrete. No dripping pipes. The walls were smooth silver panels that hummed with steady power. Bright white lights ran along the ceiling and lit every corner. “Look at this place,” Elara said under her breath. She kept her rifle up and watched the empty hallway ahead. “It is cleaner than a hospital. They built a whole luxury setup under a mountain while the surface burned.” “They never planned to share it,” Vane said. He pulled his portable terminal from his pouch and plugged a cable into a wall port. “This whole facility runs on its own closed network. Give me a few seconds and I will open the main vault.” “Make it fast,” Jaren said. He pressed his back against the curved wall. A distant alarm started chiming down the corridor. “We just tripped

Asher walked out of the narrow stone service exit first. His boots crunched over the damp pine needles on the mountain ridge. The heavy steel door clicked shut behind him with a final, quiet thud. It sealed away the dark corridors and broken consoles of the founders’ underground world for good. Ahead of them the great valley stretched out toward the horizon. Pale gold light from the new dawn covered the land. No artificial smoke. No hidden timers. Just open sky. He stopped at the edge of the cliff and breathed in the cool mountain wind. It carried the clean smell of damp earth and pine. “I have to admit,” Elara said as she stepped out behind him. She stretched her arms high above her head until her shoulders popped. “Standing under a real sky feels a lot better than dodging falling ceilings and elite guards in a glass hallway.” “That depends on what we are walking down into,” Vane muttered. He adjusted the portable terminal under his arm and stepped into the open air. He tappe

Asher felt the tight weight in his chest start to loosen. He stepped off the gray stone highway onto the green grass of the open plains. His boots sank a little into the damp ground. Behind them the towers of the capital grew smaller and smaller until they looked like broken teeth on the far edge of the morning sky. No sirens cut through the air. No drones hummed overhead. Only the soft sound of tall grass moving like green waves under a steady breeze that carried the smell of clover and warm rain. He pulled the strap of his canvas pack higher on his shoulder and kept walking west. The paved roads and the cheering crowds stayed far behind. Jaren jogged a few steps to catch up, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I have to say, trading city traffic for a walk through miles of nothing is a real change. Are we heading somewhere specific, or are we just walking until our boots fall apart?” “We are heading wherever the road stops giving us reasons to look back,” Asher said. He did not slow

Jaren crouched behind a jagged outcrop of gray stone, his fingers tightening around the grip of his rifle as he peered down into the rocky gorge below. A hundred feet beneath them, a turbulent river churned violently against jagged boulders, spanned by a massive stone bridge that had clearly taken a direct hit during the capital's seismic collapse. The center arches had sheared clean off, leaving a gaping thirty-foot chasm of empty air. Trapped right at the edge of the broken drop were two heavy transport trucks loaded down with canvas bags, crates of dried grain, and a dozen tired nomadic travelers arguing frantically over a tangled mess of steel cables. "Well, that explains why our map app is completely useless out here," Jaren muttered, lowering his binoculars and looking sideways at Elara, who was busy unhooking her tactical harness to get a better view of the chaos unfolding below. "Looks like some local families tried to take the old trade route north before they realized th

Elara slammed the gear shift into park, letting the heavy armored van idle with a low rumble as she stared through the rain spattered windshield. Spread out before them lay the storm battered northern coastline, a jagged landscape of towering black cliffs overlooking a churning, slate gray sea that looked like liquid lead. Built directly into the base of the rock face was an ancient founder naval dock, its massive concrete pillars stained with dark salt streaks and tangled in rusted iron chains. Decaying skeleton frames of old patrol boats jutted out from the water like broken ribs, while the low, monotonous hum of a partially active security generator echoed faintly over the crashing waves. "Well, if anyone ever wanted to build a secret base to hide from humanity, this freezing rock pile wins first prize," Jaren said, pressing his face against the side window to inspect the decaying concrete structures below. He unbuckled his seatbelt with a sharp snap and reached for his rifle r