The heat hit me like a brick wall. Sand peppered my visor, collecting in the joints of the rifle jammed between my knees. The truck lurches over another ridge, tyres grinding over what used to be a road. Wind tears through the open-top 4x4, carrying the scent of hot metal and dust straight into my teeth.
Someone behind me jokes about bursting into flames like a vampire in this sun. I half laugh, half inhale dust. The engine drowns everything else, a low growl that becomes the heartbeat of the patrol. The desert answers back with nothing. Soldiers get used to that kind of silence after too long out here.
I tap my fingers against my knee to keep my brain from wandering. The driver hums something that was never a song and never will be. For a moment, it is only wind, the engine, and the steady rhythm of tyres grinding the world into smaller pieces.
Then the world folds in on itself.
Light, sound, heat, all at once. A white pulse swallows the horizon. The truck jumps, floats, shatters. The air solidifies around me, crushing my chest as something cracks inside my helmet.
I try to scream but sand climbs down my throat instead of air.
Time does not stop. It disintegrates. My ears ring so loud I mistake it for silence. The sky flips upside down. Someone screams my name, it sounds like I'm underwater.
I try to move my leg. Nothing. Pain replaces feeling. My arm twitches once, then quits. In the cracked side mirror I catch a glimpse of myself, dust, blood, wide eyes, a silent scream stuck behind shattered glass.
A shadow looms. Hands press against my chest. A voice shouts words my ears no longer understand. A sting hits my neck. The world tilts, heat bleeding into cold.
Voices float in from somewhere too clean to be the desert.
"She's critical."
"Neural activity stable."
"We're losing her."
"We can use what's left."
I want to tell them to stop. My tongue is dead weight.
"Begin interface."
Pain tears me apart. Then it stops. Everything stops.
Then, breath. Slow. Mechanical. Wrong.
A red light blinks overhead. Each pulse paints the room in colour before stealing it away again. Ceiling panels hang open, cables drooping like vines. Oil and rust choke the air.
I try to sit. My muscles respond in broken pieces, one arm too heavy, the other dragging like it belongs to a different person. Pain blooms, fades, blooms again. I lie still until the shaking stops.
Another sound enters the silence: a voice.
"Good morning."
Soft. Warm. Completely at odds with the apocalypse decor.
"You are awake," the female voice continues, tone careful, as if I am a spooked animal. "I am Cadence. Your cognitive adaptive… never mind, it does not matter yet. I am here to help."
I try to speak. Sandpaper comes out. "Where… am I?"
"In a laboratory," Cadence answers. "You have been inactive for a significant period. Your vitals are inconsistent. Please attempt slow breathing. If possible."
Her voice has a strange kindness to it, like someone programmed empathy into a toaster and somehow it worked.
I breathe anyway. It hurts. Air tastes like old fire.
When I manage to move again, my gaze catches on the table beside me. There is a shape on it. A person, or what used to be one. Skin stone-coloured. Body collapsed inward. Tubes feeding into a machine that no longer moves.
Brown dust pools under the table. I touch it. It dissolves instantly.
The smell hits, dry, metallic, the ghost of blood that escaped years ago.
I stumble back. Something clinks when I move. I look down.
Half my body is is not me, my torso, my left arm, my left leg...
My left arm gleams in the red light.
Metal. Smooth. Segmented. Alien.
No warmth. No pulse. Just weight.
"What… did they do to me?"
Cadence pauses long enough to tell me she is choosing her words.
"They ensured your survival," she says gently. "Whether or not you wanted that outcome remains the same."
I limp through the room, grabbing tables for balance. Every step echoes too loudly. Every screen is cracked. Dust has claimed every surface. A crooked sign reads VOSS BIO-MECH DIVISION.
Something flickers in my peripheral vision, a faint yellow glow under a collapsed workstation.
Cadence reacts instantly. "Energy signature detected. Auxiliary power cell. Functionality questionable. Approach if you enjoy uncertainty."
I crawl toward it, every movement a negotiation between flesh and machine. The cell rests inside a shattered containment pod, chipped but still humming faintly.
When I reach out, the light brightens against my metal palm.
Cadence softens her tone. "It will help. Probably. Statistically leaning toward yes."
The hunger for that warmth hits too fast, too sharp. I hate it. I still slot the cell into a port at my side I did not know existed.
One heartbeat.
Then a surge. Not pain. Not pleasure. Something more invasive, rewiring everything at once. Nerves ignite. Circuits hum.
"Power stabilising," Cadence reports, sounding like she feels it too. "Improvement noted. Marking this as a positive incident."
A faint thread of yellow pulses through the seams of my metal arm like a heartbeat trying to find its rhythm.
I stare at it longer than I should.
I follow the EXIT signs. The door groans open, dumping dust on my head. The air outside smells ancient and colder than it should.
"Atmosphere is survivable," Cadence murmurs. "You should be able to breathe."
"Should?"
A pause. "Statistically."
Outside blinds me. I shield my face. Yellow light threads through the plates of my metal arm. The world is ruin. Towers bent like wet paper. Roads eaten by dunes. The sky bruised purple and gold.
Wind pushes at me. Silence pushes harder.
Cadence breaks it with a whisper. "Environment survivable. Continuation probability uncertain."
"Story of my life so far," I say.
"You are not alone," she replies softly. "You have me."
A broken laugh escapes me. "Then we'd better start walking."
Far ahead, something glimmers: another faint thread of yellow.
A promise.
Or bait.
Either way, I walk toward it.