The desert stretches out in pale gold. Heat ripples over broken dunes. My shadow is the only thing keeping me company.
Cadence hums inside my head. "You are unusually quiet."
"Talking to myself again," I mutter.
"You're technically talking to me."
"Exactly, that's the problem."
Silence for a beat. Then she says, "Would you prefer I join you...?"
I stop walking. "You mean walk with me?"
"I can project at 5 meters. Technically, yes. I can accompany you"
I grin despite myself. "Do it."
A flicker of blue light ignites beside me. Then she's there, the hologram, same shape as before, that transparent figure of shifting light and faint static. Her feet don't quite touch the sand. The glow turns the dunes into mirrors.
"Well," she says, looking herself up and down, "now we are both talking to ourselves."
I snort. "Better than talking inside my head."
"Your head is cosy, all be it empty."
"Get your own."
We start walking again. The desert wind whispers across the dunes. The hologram flickers faintly in the rising dust. I catch myself glancing at her, half expecting her to trip even though she can't touch the ground.
"This feels weird," I admit. "Like traveling with a ghost."
"Incorrect. Ghosts lack diagnostic functionality."
"Comforting."
The sun dips lower. Shadows stretch. The heat thins out and the light goes red. We keep moving until the first edge of night bleeds into the horizon.
When darkness finally arrives, Cadence's glow becomes a beacon against the sand.
I squint. "You're glowing."
"Compliment accepted."
"No. Turn it down. You're advertising."
She sighs in a way only an AI can. The brightness fades until she's just a faint outline, a shimmer following me through the dark.
"Better?" she asks.
"Yes. Less like walking with a flashlight."
"Rude."
"Accurate."
I activate Vision Enhancement Level One. The HUD sharpens, colours flatten, and the world floods with pale outlines. The night becomes a map of motion and heat.
Then I see it.
The scavenger camp sprawls across the horizon like a wound. A scrapyard turned village, towers of rusted cars stacked ten high, old billboards used as walls, fires burning in metal barrels. The air above it wavers with heat and smoke. Shapes move between the wrecks, dozens at first, then more. Over a hundred. Men. Women. Even children. All mutilated, flesh welded to iron, limbs replaced with tools, weapons or both. Sparks flicker where bone meets wire. The children crawl on reinforced hands. One laughs, and it sounds like static.
"Cadence," I whisper. "You seeing this?"
"Wish I could unsee it."
There's movement near the fires. They gathered around something on the ground.
Looks like they're eating.
Human flesh, cooked in pieces on twisted rebar. The smell reaches me even here, burnt oil and blood.
Cadence's voice lowers. "Morality check in progress."
"Shut up."
"They are consuming biological matter for sustenance."
"I said shut up."
Silence again. The hum of the fires carries across the sand like a heartbeat. Every instinct in me says run. Every order I've ever been given says don't.
Then I see the cage.
Half buried near the centre, welded from pipes and scrap steel. Two people inside. Both barely alive. The captives. One moves weakly, the other doesn't move at all.
"There they are," I say.
"Both showing vital signs," Cadence confirms. "Barely."
I stare at the chaos below. There's no stealthing through that. No cover. No plan that makes sense.
Then the stupid idea hits.
"I think I have a way in..."
"I already hate it," Cadence says.
"I'll use the holographic projector."
"For what purpose?"
"To project a scav escorting me into the camp as a prisoner. Walk straight through."
Silence...
"You disapprove?"
"I am calculating the probability of success."
"And?"
"50:50."
I frown. "How'd you get that number?"
"Either it will or it won't."
"Genius."
I crouch lower on the dunes, adjust my clothing so nothing protrudes, and ask Cadence to reconfigure the hologram. Her blue form flickers, ripples, and reshapes. Metal limbs. Twisted spine. One glowing eye. The voice becomes gravel through static.
Cadence looks down at herself and sighs. "Look at the state of me."
"We're going for horror, not runway."
"Tragic. I here I was one add-on update away from a supermodel."
"Alright," I whisper. "Let's walk into hell."
We move down the dune together. Sand hisses under my boots. The fires grow brighter as we approach. The smell thickens, blood, rust, burning fuel. I keep my head low, Cadence's projection towering beside me, chain in her spectral hand. To anyone watching, it looks like I'm being dragged.
We cross the outer scrap wall. No one stops us. The noise hides our steps, laughter, growls, clanging metal. I pass a cluster of scav children playing with a severed arm like it's a doll. One of them waves. I don't wave back.
Cadence murmurs, "Proximity holding. Visual stable. You might actually pull ..."
Then it happens...
I look left at the wrong moment. A group by the fire. A body turning on a spit. Human. The smell hits me again, thick and hot. My stomach twists. My breathing stutters. The projection continues forward then flickers. The image of my captor wavers like a bad transmission.
A scav turns.
He sees me, unchained.
Cadence whispers, "Uh oh."
The projection collapses in a burst of static. Every head nearby snaps toward me. The laughter stops. Someone screams something guttural.
And then the entire camp moves.
They surge from every corner, claws, blades, teeth. A sea of metal and meat.
"Abort?" Cadence asks.
"Too late."
I sprint. The first scav lunges. I kick him aside and dive between two wrecked cars. Sparks rain down.
"Left," she yells.
I roll that way, narrowly missing a blade that carves a scar into the sand where I stood.
Gunfire. Shouts. Engines sputtering to life. The whole camp ignites in chaos.
"Subtlety failed," I say.
"Understatement detected."
I duck behind a rusted truck. Ahead, I see the cage. The captives barely move. One lifts their head as I crawl closer.
Their face is pale, eyes wide and glassy.
"Help," they breathe.
"Be right with you."
I reach the cage, jam my fingers into the welds, and pull. Metal groans. My arm servos scream in protest. Cadence boosts power automatically. The bars snap.
I drag the two out, one slung over each shoulder. My HUD floods with warnings, heart rates, temperature spikes, structural strain. I ignore all of it.
We reach the edge of the yard. Scavs pour in from every direction, howling. I find a gap between two half-buried buses and squeeze through. A derelict commercial truck sits rusting behind them, door hanging open.
"In there," Cadence urges.
I shove the captives inside and slam the door. The interior smells of oil and dust, but it's quiet, at least for a second.
One captive coughs, barely conscious. "What… what are you?"
"Walking disaster, pleased to meet you."
Outside, footsteps scrape against the sand. Screams echo closer. Metal clangs on metal.
Cadence sighs "You can't fight all of them."
"Watch me."
"You are going to die."
"Probably."
"You sound calm about it."
"I'm too tired to panic."
A shadow passes the truck window. Dozens more follow.
I flex my hands, servo whine sharp in the silence.
"Battery 91 %" Cadence says quietly.
"Good," I whisper. "Let's make it count."
I reach for the handle. The door creaks as I push it open. The first scav is waiting. I slam my elbow into its jaw before it can move. The head snaps sideways, body folding into the sand.
Behind it, the mob screams.
The captives cry out. The fires roar higher. Sparks fill the night air like fireflies gone wrong.
Cadence's voice softens in my ear. "Iris, odds are...."
"Don't tell me unless its 50:50 again."
"Fine. I will enjoy the show."
I step into the open. The entire camp turns toward me. Metal glints under firelight. The horizon itself seems to move.
For a heartbeat, no one breathes.
Then they charge.