Shoremont sat in the ruins, blinking like a man considering for it to be a dream.
Drizzle tapped his shoulders in soft, persistent tickle-tockle, as if the sky itself was unsure whether to commit to rain or just be irritating. His coat hung crooked, one sleeve inside-out, and his brown hair had achieved a sort of philosophical disarray. He brushed soot off his trousers. It did not leave. It simply rearranged itself into a new, more confident pattern of dirt.
From somewhere nearby, a factory exhaled a long, tired hisscrank, like an old man unimpressed with everything that happened around him.
Sho turned his head slowly.
The carriage. No, the Juggernaut, as some deeply cursed soul had named it, lay half-split against the roadside, still ticking in little offended noises. One wheel spun lazily, clankle… clonk… clankle…, as though finishing a thought it forgot to start.
A sudden crackle snapped at his wrist.
Sho yelped and flailed, nearly falling over again. The bracelet flickered with a faint yellow glow. Then a voice burst through.
"All surviving units, report status immediately. This is General Vale. Respond."
Sho froze. He stared at the bracelet like it had just accused him of a crime.
"…hello?" he said, cautiously. "I think you have the wrong-"
"Identify yourself."
The voice was sharp. Not loud. Just… inevitably obeyed.
Sho swallowed. "I am Sho. Shoremont Moreau. I sell sweet potatoes."
"Unit designation?"
"I do not have a designation," Sho said, a little more firmly. "I mean, I have a stall. Near the fountain. Third umbrella on the left. Very reputable!"
A pause. Not confusion. Calculation.
"…you are wearing a Mark IV Bracelet," the voice replied. "You were in Transit Unit Seven. That makes you, at present, the only responding operative in your sector."
Sho looked around.
There were no operatives. There were broken crates, a tilted lantern, and one deeply traitorous potato sitting in the mud like it had caused all of this.
"…no?" Sho said softly. "No, I don't think so. I think there has been a clerical…"
"Listen carefully," the General cut in. "Your convoy was ambushed by forces of the Null Concordat."
Sho blinked.
"The… the what?"
"The enemy," the voice said, as if explaining gravity to a chair. "A nest of those crook-cogged copycogs."
Sho scoffed. The general sounded like he really hated them.
"They are advancing a classified project," the General continued. "A bioweapon. Codename: Eidolon Bloom."
Sho stared at the bracelet. "…that sounds extremely illegal."
"You are to proceed to the last known coordinates and retrieve it."
Sho let out a small, fragile laugh.
"I- I think there's been a misunderstanding. I am not one of your cogsnarling brassbabblers. I am, quite specifically, a man with potatoes and molasses."
Silence.
Then, very calmly, "You are the only one available out there. We are running out of time."
"Yes, but I am also the least suitable," Sho insisted. "There are, statistically, many better options! A dog, perhaps. A particularly motivated chair!"
"Do you intend to leave that weapon in the enemy's hands?"
Sho hesitated. The drizzle thickened slightly, tapping against the broken carriage with a soft, uneasy rhythm.
In the distance, something boomed. A low, rolling bangwhistle that made the air feel thinner.
Sho's fingers curled. "I don't even know what it is," he said.
"That is why you will find it," the General replied. "Retrieve it, or ensure it cannot be used. Those fools do not get to rewrite what it means to live in peace."
Sho looked down at his hands. Still shaking. Still… his.
"…I sell potatoes," he said again, weaker this time.
"And today," said the General, "you don't."
The bracelet clicked. The connection thinned, but did not disappear.
Sho sat there for a long moment. Then he sighed. "…this is a terrible promotion."
He had relocated exactly three steps to the left, which he felt counted as strategic movement.
"So let me summarise," he said, pacing in a very small, very muddy circle. "You want me, a civilian, to infiltrate an enemy facility and retrieve a bioweapon…?"
"Yes."
"And these enemies," Sho continued, warming to his confusion, "are… what did you call them? Copycogs?"
"Replication Order," the General corrected. "A sect of the Null Concordat. They are reportedly experimenting on humans for a secret weapon."
Sho grimaced. "That sounds deeply unpleasant."
"It is an abomination," Vale said, his voice tightening for the first time.
Sho swallowed. "…right," as if he understood anything.
A small wind swept through, carrying soot and the distant, metallic cough of factories. The skyline beyond the road loomed with tall chimneys, each one exhaling a slow, watchful whirr, like giants pretending not to stare.
Sho looked back at the wreckage. "…if I do this," he said carefully, "I would like it noted that I am doing it under protest!"
"Noted."
"And also confusion!"
"… also noted."
"And mild resentment!"
"Proceed with the mission, Mr. Moreau."
Sho exhaled through his nose.
"…fine."
He turned toward the broken carriage, stepping carefully over debris. His boots squelched with each step, a miserable squelchle-squash that suggested the ground itself disapproved. Inside, crates had split open. Supplies scattered. And there, miraculously…
"My potatoes," Sho breathed.
He rushed forward, dropping to his knees with the urgency of a man reuniting with family. A few were bruised. One was… emotionally distant. But most were intact. Sho gathered them quickly, stuffing them into his satchel.
"I'm not leaving you," he muttered. "You've done nothing wrong."
The bracelet beeped faintly.
"…you are bringing vegetables, son," the General said.
"They are reliable," Sho replied, tying the satchel tight. "And, if necessary, throwable!"
A pause.
"…carry on."
…
The road out of the city sloped downward into a stretch of industrial outskirts that looked like it had been designed by someone who disliked colour.
Drizzle hung in the air, thin but persistent, turning everything into a dull sheen of grey. The mud sucked at Sho's boots with each step, reluctant to let him go.
Factories lined the horizon, tall and skeletal, their chimneys coughing out slow ribbons of smoke. In the dim light, they seemed to lean inward, watching. Hissle and hassle and whirr and splutter.
Sho adjusted his satchel and pulled his coat tighter.
"…this is fine, Sho," he whispered to himself. "This is completely fine! People do this all the time… I think."
A distant patrol passed along the main road ahead. Enemy soldiers. Real ones. The Null Concordat. Their silhouettes moved with purpose, rifles slung, voices low.
Sho froze. He crouched.
This achieved nothing except making him slightly shorter and significantly more suspicious.
Still, he pressed forward, stepping off the main path and into a patch of scrub and scattered debris. He tiptoed. Carefully. Delicately. His coat snagged on a rusted pipe. He turned, twisted, and promptly knocked over a loose metal panel.
Clank!
Sho froze again. The patrol paused in the distance. He dropped flat into the mud. "…I am a rock," he whispered to himself. "A very convincing rock!"
The soldiers moved on.
After a long moment, Sho lifted his head, dripping and miserable. He stood, wiped his face, and kept walking, with a relieved sigh. The deeper he went, the quieter it became. Not silent. Just… distant.
Cannon fire echoed somewhere far off. Low. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat the world was trying not to acknowledge. The wind carried it in fragments.
Boom… …boom…
Sho tightened his grip on the satchel. The factories loomed closer now. Larger. Watching more openly. He slowed. For the first time since the carriage, he stopped completely.
Looked ahead.
Looked back.
Nothing behind him but smoke and mud and the faint, fading tick of something that used to be normal.
He swallowed.
"…I don't even know what I'm walking into," he said softly.
The wind answered with a tired whirr-splutter.
And still,
He walked.