The Price of Resurrection

Chapter 4 – The Run Through Ash

The world came back in fragments, smoke, sirens, the hiss of burning steel. David forced his eyes open. The clinic was gone, replaced by a crater of ash and shattered glass. Every breath stung like fire. “Rho?”

A groan answered from beneath a collapsed beam. He staggered over, hauling it off with shaking arms. She coughed, eyes flickering open. “You alive?” he asked.

“Mostly,” she rasped. “What… what was that?”

“Bruce.”

She blinked at him, dazed. “That was no human.”

“He wasn’t supposed to be,” David said quietly.

Rho sat up, blood trickling down her temple. “Containment team?”

He looked around. “Dead or running.”

She pressed a trembling hand to her earpiece. “Kane’s going to want a full report.”

“I’ll give him one,” David muttered. “After we get out of here.”

He reached for her arm, but she pulled away. “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah,” he said. “So is everyone else.”

Sirens wailed closer. Drones hummed overhead, searchlights slicing through the haze. Rho tried to stand. “Protocol says we stay until extraction.”

“Protocol’s dead,” David said. “Like this whole damn block.”

“Foreman”

“Don’t ‘Foreman’ me. You saw what they did to him. What we did. Genesis will hunt him until he’s ash. And I’m not helping them.”

Rho’s gaze hardened. “You walk away now, they’ll classify you as contaminated.”

“I already am.”

A voice crackled through their comms: “Foreman. Report.” Kane.

David froze. Rho stared at him. “Do you copy, Major?”

David exhaled slowly. “Copy.”

“Status.”

He looked around at the wreckage, the bodies, the drifting sparks. “Containment failed. Subject vanished.”

“Coordinates?”

“Signal unstable,” David lied. “Residual interference.”

“Understood,” Kane said. There was a pause, then: “Hold position for retrieval.”

David’s eyes narrowed. “Negative. The zone’s collapsing. We need immediate evac.”

“Denied. You’re closer to the anomaly than anyone. Stay where you are.”

Rho mouthed silently: They’ll kill us.

David’s hand moved to his wrist, finding the pulse of the implanted chip. “Understood,” he said into the comm.

Then he drew his knife. “What are you doing?” Rho demanded.

“Buying time.” He pressed the blade to his wrist and sliced. Sparks flared as the chip blinked red, then died.

Pain lanced through him; he gritted his teeth. Rho’s eyes widened. “You just severed your failsafe”

“Yeah. Guess I’m freelance now.”

“Do you have any idea what Kane will do when”

“Yeah,” he said again, pulling her toward the exit. “That’s why we run.”

They stumbled into the street. Everything burned: cars, trees, pieces of the sky. The air shimmered with residual energy, like invisible fire. Rho coughed. “Where are we going?”

“Away from Genesis,” David said. “And toward Bruce.”

“Toward him?” She shook her head. “You saw what he did, he’s not human anymore.”

“He’s still my friend.”

Rho stared at him. “You’re going to get yourself killed for him.”

“Maybe,” he said, scanning the dark horizon. “But I’d rather die on my terms than live on theirs.”

For a moment, neither spoke. Only the ash falling like gray snow.

Then, A whisper. David. He froze. The voice wasn’t Rho’s. It was inside his head, faint but real.

David… they’re coming. His pulse spiked. “Bruce?”

Rho glanced at him. “What?”

He looked around. No one. Only ruins. “We need to move. Now.”

They’ll find you through me, the voice murmured. Run while you can.

David grabbed Rho’s arm. “You don’t understand. He’s, he’s linked to me somehow.”

“Linked?”

“Telepathic. Residual energy connection. Whatever it is, he’s warning us.”

Rho stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “Or luring you in.”

He met her gaze. “Only one way to find out.”

Rain began to fall, not water, but gray dust turned to sludge by humidity. It smeared across David’s coat as he and Rho pushed through the wreckage, boots crunching glass.

“Genesis sweep teams will grid this zone in two minutes,” Rho said, scanning her wrist display. “If they find us”

“They won’t,” David cut in. “Your empath trick work on drones?”

“No.”

“Then we improvise.”

He ducked into an alley where half a skybridge had collapsed. The metal groaned above them like a dying animal.

Rho followed, muttering, “This is insane. You sever your tracker, disobey direct orders, and now you drag me into treason?”

“Treason’s just loyalty in the wrong direction,” he said.

“You think that line makes you noble?”

“No,” David replied, glancing at the sky. “Just alive.”

Overhead, engines roared, three drones swept past, lights slicing through the smoke. One beam caught the edge of his shoulder before he yanked Rho under the bridge. “Still alive?” she whispered.

“Barely.”

Her eyes flicked to the blood running down his sleeve. “You’re losing too much”

“Later,” he said. “We move when they loop back.”

Rho’s jaw tightened. “You’re bleeding out, and you’re still thinking tactics.”

“It’s all I’ve got left.”

For a long moment, only the crackle of fires filled the silence. Then, faintly, David… this way. He straightened, eyes scanning the alley. “You hear that?”

Rho frowned. “Hear what?”

“The voice.”

“There’s no one here.”

He took a slow breath. Bruce, he thought, if that’s you, North, the voice whispered inside his skull. Trust the light. Rho caught the change in his expression. “Don’t tell me he’s talking to you again.”

“He just saved us once,” David said. “I’m listening.”

“You’re listening to a man who flattened a city block.”

“He didn’t mean to.”

“And if he does it again?”

David looked at her. “Then I’ll stop him.”

She studied him, seeing the conviction, or the madness, in his eyes, then finally nodded. “North, then.”

They moved through the skeletal remains of the district. Buildings leaned at impossible angles; air shimmered with leftover energy fields.

Drones combed the streets like mechanical wasps, their searchlights painting the ruins in cold blue. Rho checked her scanner. “No safe zones left. We’re walking into the dead grid.”

“Exactly,” David said. “They’ll assume no one’s stupid enough to hide there.”

“Except us.”

“Exactly.”

They slipped into a half-collapsed subway entrance, descending into darkness. The further they went, the louder the whisper grew. Almost there… Rho clutched the railing. “He’s guiding you like a signal.”

“Yeah.”

“You sure it’s not Genesis bouncing audio through your implant port?”

“I cut the implant.”

“Then how”

“I don’t know!” he snapped, echo bouncing through the tunnel.

They froze. Above them, a mechanical whine rose, metallic legs clattering on the pavement. Rho whispered, “Hunter unit.”

David drew his sidearm. “Genesis sent a Mecha-hound. Great.”

The machine dropped into the tunnel mouth, eyes burning crimson. It sniffed once, then lunged. “Move!” David fired twice. Sparks exploded off its armor; the bullets barely slowed it.

Rho grabbed a steel rod from the debris, jamming it into a live cable. Electricity arced, the tunnel flashing white. She slammed the charged rod into the hound’s flank.

The thing shrieked, convulsed, then collapsed, smoking. David stared at her. “Remind me never to argue with you.”

She panted. “You talk too much.”

Before he could answer, the voice returned, louder now, urgent. David, stop. Don’t take another step. He froze. “Bruce?”

Rho’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

The ground beneath them cracked. A pale glow spread from the fissure, an energy field thrumming with impossible light. It’s a trap, the voice warned. They found me through you.

Then the tunnel erupted. A blast of blue fire swallowed everything.