Chapter 20 #2
We’ve been rolling for hours through the wasteland, the world outside stitched together from flashes of blue-white and blotched shadow, like the lighting designer is drunk and wants us all dead.
The APC vibrates with the churn of military-grade treads over broken concrete, but you can still feel the pulse of the Spheres from miles away, the way a migraine sours your mouth before it even hits your brain.
It happens with zero warning.
A spike of EM hits the convoy like a fist. For half a second, every electronic in the rig shorts: lights strobe, internal comms fry to static, the wrist monitors on three guards all flatline at once.
The APC lurches and shudders to a stop. For one, perfect moment, the only sound is the after-echo of machinery dying.
Then the doors unlock with a heavy clunk, and the world outside comes pouring in: blue bioluminescence, brighter than any sane noon, and the dense, honeyed stink of mutated pollen.
I see Kang at the hatch, shoving the release with his shoulder and stepping out like he’s expecting a bullet to the head.
I’m hauled out next by a guard with more zeal than coordination. My boots hit ground—soggy, uneven, not-quite-dirt. The air is sharp enough to taste, laced with the chemical ozone that means a Sphere is close, and the more familiar tang of fear-sweat from the guards.
The convoy—five APCs, three supply trucks, one unmarked Humvee—sits idling in the middle of a low valley.
The landscape is a fever dream: old trees broken into angles, their bark furred with blue and purple fungus; the grass is gone, replaced by mats of something that ripples in waves like it’s breathing.
Ten meters out, you can see the Spheres, half-buried like landmines, their surfaces crawling with hexagonal reflections.
Kang stands at the head of the column, consulting a holo map projected from his sleeve. The other officers cluster behind, hunched in the blue haze.
There’s a commotion up the line—a tech trying to recalibrate the lead vehicle’s EM shield.
I drift closer, ears tuned to the murmurs of Authority jargon.
A young lieutenant, hair buzzed so tight it looks airbrushed, points at the map: “If we skirt the north ridge, we’ll clear the rad spike and avoid civilian losses. That’s protocol for this sector.”
Kang grunts, unconvinced. “The last pulse came from the south, not the Spheres. Wind’s wrong. Patterns don’t match any prior data set.”
The lieutenant tries again “We have standing orders—”
He cuts her off with a flick of the hand. “We have standing orders to survive. If that means violating route, I’ll answer to Petrov myself.”
I step forward, half-expecting to be shot for the breach of perimeter. But Kang’s eyes lock on mine, and for a second, the world shrinks to two bodies in a vacuum.
“The Spheres don’t behave randomly,” I say, voice as flat as I can make it. “If you map the emission spikes with local wind vectors, you’ll see the plume curves back on itself. Classic vortex pattern.”
The lieutenant’s jaw tightens. “Civilians aren’t allowed to—”
I ignore her. “You’re walking into the eye of the storm if you take the north ridge. The only safe route is west, along the drainage basin. It’ll get you out of the spike in under a klick.”
Kang doesn’t move, but his lips twitch—a sign, if you know him. “That’s not standard Authority doctrine.”
I smile, baring every broken edge of my teeth. “Neither is sending three squads to babysit a single research asset.”
The pause hangs, then Kang turns to the lieutenant. “Recalculate with her inputs. Verify against onboard sensors.”
The young woman glowers, but pulls up her tablet and starts punching numbers.
I shift my stance, feeling the eyes of every guard on my back. I can sense Kang’s calculation: risk versus reward, the utility of listening to a convict scientist versus the cost of one mistake.
I look up at the sky, watching the weird blue corona ripple over the treeline. I want to say, “You could have been out of here already if you’d just listened,” but there’s no point. In Authority, pride is an ecosystem all its own.
A minute later, the lieutenant’s face goes pale. “She’s right, sir. The rad vectors spike north, but there’s a decay curve due west—could be a window if we move now.”
Kang nods, just once. “Order the convoy to the basin. We’ll reassess at the far side.”
He turns to me. For a moment, the blue light makes him look years older, every scar and worry line etched in neon. His eyes are tired, but there’s something like gratitude behind them.
“You always this insubordinate?” he asks, voice low and flat—but there’s an edge beneath it, like he’s testing something.
I shrug, the zipcuffs tugging tight enough to burn against my wrists. “You should know by now, Captain.”
For a second, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
But I see it—the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
A flicker, like he’s fighting a smirk and nearly loses.
It’s gone in a heartbeat, buried beneath the hard lines of his face, but I saw it.
And it hits me harder than it should—this one brief, human glitch in his otherwise bulletproof facade.
We stand there, suspended in it. That electric pause. The space between what we say and everything we’re not saying. Then a scream slices through the air, sharp and ragged, shattering the moment like glass under pressure.
The spell breaks.
It’s from the third APC—civilian transport.
The guards inside are trying to restrain someone, but the figure breaks free, stumbles into the open.
It’s a woman, hair shorn to the scalp, eyes rolling in terror.
There’s a black band at her temple: Mnemonic Suppressor, glinting with the Authority’s sigil.
She collapses to her knees in the fungus, hands clawing at the device. Her mouth is open but the sounds that come out are more animal than human, a series of gasps and sobs, then a litany of fractured words.
“They said—I can’t—I’m not—I remember—please—my name—my name—”
Two guards move in, but she bats them away, fingers tearing at the Suppressor. There’s a brief, electric sizzle and the smell of burnt hair.
She looks up, eyes locking on me. “Don’t let them do it,” she begs. “They erase you. They erase everything.”
The guards close in, one jamming a syringe into her neck. She slumps, instantly limp, but the echo of her voice vibrates through the column. Kang’s face is unreadable. He gestures at the guards, then at the rest of the civilians still trapped in their own Suppressor-induced haze.
“Get her inside. Restrain her until we reach base.”
The guards obey, dragging her limp form back to the truck. For a second, I can see her face, slack and empty, the blue light playing across her cheekbones like the surface of a drowned body.
I want to vomit. Instead, I look back at Kang.
He’s watching me, not like a jailer, but like a man who knows exactly how much is at stake.
I want to scream at him, to shake him until he understands what he’s done. But the words won’t come. Instead, I whisper, just loud enough for him to hear:
“The radiation doesn’t behave randomly. It follows patterns if you know how to read them.”
He meets my gaze, and in the space between us is everything that matters and nothing at all.
The convoy starts moving again, engines grinding as they lurch toward the basin.
The scream of the woman lingers, a memory spike neither of us can erase.
I walk back to my APC, hands still bound, but head high.
The game is changing.
And I’m not the only one who knows it.