The rain had stopped sometime before dawn.
Warren woke first.
Styll was nestled against his leg, awake but motionless, eyes fixed on the other side of the room. Watching.
Wren was curled into the far wall, wrapped in the same emergency blanket. Her eyes were open. She'd been pretending to sleep.
"You're not much of a sleeper, are you?" she said, voice low, not quite joking.
"I don't have the luxury."
"Yeah, no, I can tell. You look like a guy who hasn't blinked since the collapse."
Warren didn't look at her. He peeled back his sleeve and checked the med strip. The skin beneath was raw but sealed. Weeks of healing packed into hours.
"I don't like feeling weak," he said.
Wren pushed herself upright. "That stuff hurts like hell. I've seen grown men whimpering like newborn babes when they saw one of those come out of a med kit."
"They lived."
"Some of them. The loud ones usually don't."
She looked at Styll, then back at Warren. "She didn't even flinch."
"She's mine."
Wren didn't ask what that meant. She just nodded, scanning the room.
"You're heading out."
Warren didn't answer. Not yet. He moved slowly, checking the tarp beneath their bedding, the crates against the far wall, and the faint scent trails that marked passage. Just her scent. Just stillness.
She watched him move.
Not rushed. Not slow. Just exact.
"What are you looking for? Ghosts? Hidden traps?"
"Not yet. First I check what hasn't moved."
Wren frowned, tucking her knees closer. "Is that, like, a routine?"
"Only when I've survived the night."
He moved to the chain assembly bolted to the front corner wall. Gripped the pulley with two fingers and gave it a half-turn, just enough to test. He felt the resistance push back, heard the low whir of the drive system engage under the floor. Subtle. Clean. Still functional.
No skip. No grind. Just movement.
He crouched again and ran a finger along the axle groove. Moisture clung thin along the edge. No corrosion. Still clean. Still ready.
He gave the spokes a cautious twist. They turned with quiet resistance, slow but sure, like something that remembered motion even after rest.
Then he stepped to the runoff line, opened the valve just enough to see a clear trickle spill. Capped flask was half full. Resealed.
Only after that did he continue his morning loop.
He opened the bin marked for medical supplies. Everything was still in order. Seal intact, gauze dry, labels untouched. Just as he'd left it. Just as it needed to be.
He checked the wall hooks. The backup wrap hadn't moved. Folded sharp, no dust, no slack in the line. Hooks sat flush in the wall. Unbent. Unforgiving. Still aligned. Still his.
Wren padded forward, careful, curious. "You always start the day like this, or is today special?"
"It's not about the day. It's about knowing what I left and what I didn't."
"Okay, Wasp," she said, letting the name carry some weight. "This a checklist or a one-man play?"
Warren opened a drawer. Tools. Realigned a cloth scrap. "Instruction. The room teaches me where I failed."
Wren stood beside him now. Didn't touch anything. Just observed.
He checked the trap loop near the rear wall. Tightened it. Inspected the moisture gauge. Still solid.
"You worried I'll use this against you or something?"
"No."
She exhaled softly, thoughtful. Arms crossed.
Warren moved to the water catch. Turned the valve just enough to test the pressure. A thread of water trickled through. Clear. Clean. He adjusted the flow slightly, listened to the catch settle, then resealed it with two precise motions.
"You ever stop, even for a breath?"
"Rest is for when you've built something worth defending."
She gave him a look, half tired, half impressed.
"You've done this so many times I bet you could do it blindfolded."
"I have. This is simpler."
Styll shifted under the table. Watched them both.
Styll followed him, tail flicking once as she curled under the table. Her eyes stayed on Wren.
Wren sighed. "You know you're the most unsettling man I've ever met?"
"You've met few men worth remembering."
"Fair."
He traced the mark on the beam. Pressed his thumb into the shallow divot.
"Still marked."
Wren moved to the side, took a seat near the map panel. "You're a creature of habit, huh?"
He didn't answer.
"Alright, Wasp," she said. "I'll shut up. You do you."
He nodded once. Moved to the map. Opened it. Checked her writing. Still there.
She didn't speak again.
He finished the loop. Closed the tools. Reset the drip line.
Then he pulled the scorched tin from under the wall shelf. Opened it. Paper. Graphite. Wax stub.
He lit it. Shielded it.
Wrote:
Still standing. Not whole. Not broken. Still learning.
Paused.
Then:
She watched the room and didn't flinch. I think you'd have liked her.
He held the tin in both hands a moment longer, then set it aside and pulled out his journal. Found a fresh page.
Date wasn't written. He never wrote the date.
He jotted notes in tight, block lettering:
One full med strip spent
No breach overnight
Still alert. Responsive.
Guest still present. No interference. Potential alignment
System pressure nominal. Backup systems stable
He tapped the edge of the graphite to knock the flakes loose.
Only after that did he fold the page closed, slid the logbook into its sealed pouch, and turned back to Mara's page.
He looked at the old fold line, ran a thumb across the crease.
He hesitated, then wrote below the last entry:
I didn't kill her. I don't know why yet. But I think you would've waited too.
He stared at the words. Didn't correct them. Didn't qualify.
Then he folded the page again. Slower this time. Let it stay bent just slightly off-center.
"I'm still here, Mara, I miss you." he said, quieter than breath, like it wasn't meant to reach anyone but her, wherever she might be, or not be.
Then he let the weight settle and closed the tin with finality.
He sealed the tin. Snuffed the flame.
Then he sat still, the tin resting beside him on the floor.
"If you ever touch that," he said without looking back, voice steady and low, "I'll know."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.
"And if you open it, if you even try, I won't hesitate. Nothing will stop me. Not the code. Not mercy. I will end you."
"Ow. Scary," Wren muttered from the side, not quite smiling.
Warren turned and looked at her. Cold. Flat. A look that said the words hadn't landed, but the line had.
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was warning made flesh.
Styll climbed into his coat.
Warren breathed in. "Time to feed the morning."
She looked at him, brow furrowed. "You planning something?"
He turned toward the stairs. "Stay here. Don't break anything."
She rolled her eyes. "No promises."
He opened the door.
And vanished into the waiting day.
The slums were thick with death and memory. Hollowed buildings stood like broken teeth, roofs sagging under their own weight. Fences that once marked boundaries now guided nothing but wind.
But this morning was different. The sky, for once, held no rain.
The air was cool and sharp and clear enough to taste.
Warren moved through it like a shadow.
There were others out too. Few, but present. Shapes hunched beneath tarpaulin cloaks, moving with the same practiced caution. They didn't speak. Didn't greet. Just nodded or passed with wide eyes and tighter grips.
A young girl, no older than twelve, pulled something from a collapsed stall and ducked away before anyone noticed. Her hair was wrapped tight beneath a scarf, her feet bare and fast. She vanished through a tear in the wall like she'd done it a hundred times.
A man with a limp paced the edge of a crater, poking at corpses with a splintered beam. He stopped now and then to shake his head or mutter something to himself. His jacket had the look of old militia, grey, mismatched, stained with memory.
Someone above, on the second level of a half-sunken building, watched Warren without blinking. Hood drawn. No sign of movement, not even breath. A watcher, not a scavenger. Warren didn't slow.
Past them, the ruins kept crawling toward the horizon.
He passed the husk of an overturned tram, its glass long gone, its frame cradling a nest of torn blankets and bones. Someone had tried to live there. Maybe died there. Maybe both.
A thick drag mark cut through the dust outside a broken apartment, leading to a torn loop of rope still nailed into the concrete. Whatever it held had either broken loose or been taken. There were scratch marks in the stone and something like fur caught in the splinters. Not recent. Not hopeful.
He crossed under a steel awning that still bore faded lettering: "clinic." The roof above it had collapsed, burying the front wall in rusted siding. Someone had dragged out the door and stripped the hinges clean.
Two teens moved across the far end of the street, one carrying a spade, the other dragging a sack. They didn't see him. Or pretended not to. Smart.
Near the edge of a bridge, he paused. Not for rest. For sound.
The city below groaned like a wounded animal beneath its own weight. A shudder. A breath. The noise of pressure shifting far beneath the surface, Red Zone air tunneling without pattern.
He kept walking.
Burned signage flashed sunlight against rusted metal. For a second, it lit his face yellow.
A corpse hung from the second-story window ahead, legs gone, arms spread like it had been displayed. Someone had written a warning beneath it. Not in ink. Not in paint.
Further down, someone cried. Not loud. Not human.
Warren didn't stop. He never stopped.
The early hours were the best and worst time to scavenge. Best, because the Broken tended to burrow deeper while the light held. Worst, because the desperate hadn't died yet.
He walked past a wall stained with blackened handprints. Past an old checkpoint pylon buried under moss. Past a shattered sign someone had painted over with the word "Ours."
Everything was quiet. Not safe. Just quiet.
Warren ducked through an alley narrow enough to slice a shoulder if you turned wrong. Overhead, clotheslines still sagged between windows.
He climbed a fire escape that rattled once, then settled. Each step placed with care. Each landing scanned. He moved like a man who had already memorized the layout. Because he had.
The rooftop smelled like mold and rust and faint rot.
He crouched low and scanned the edges. Roofline broken near the corner. A shape near the ledge. Not moving. Not twitching. Too still.
He approached in a slow arc, pipe loose in one hand, weight forward.
It was a body. Half turned. Back exposed. The neck had been split, but not cleanly.
Someone had tried to pull the fragment fast, panicked when it stuck, and either ran or died trying. The flesh was torn like a butcher's mistake.
Warren scanned the roof. No signs of blood trails. No signs of fight. Just the body and the wind.
He knelt beside it, careful not to step in the blood that had dried black around the tiles.
No lance. No pack. Just a torn jacket and fingers curled tight like they'd died trying to hold something that wasn't there.
He checked the corpse with quick fingers. Pockets first. Nothing. Then spine.
The chip was intact.
They cut to close to the bone the blade was still stuck where it had broken of on the lower vertebra. "Amateurs" he muttered.
He drew his pocket knife and pressed it just under the edge of the implant. The skin had split around it but not enough. He worked slow, parting it with two shallow cuts and lifting the fragment free with a push of his thumb.
He wrapped it in cloth and slid it into the pouch beneath his jacket.
His first of the day. Not his last.
Then he stood and looked back the way he came. The slums stretched below, still quiet. Still false.
He didn't pause.
Just turned and kept moving.
The second was in the ruins of what used to be a vending stall. The metal canopy had caved in at a sharp angle, one corner resting against the remnants of a collapsed support beam. A man was pinned beneath it, his body twisted but his face intact. His eyes were still open.
Warren had found him after cutting through a forgotten courtyard, climbing a low wall swallowed in ivy, and stepping around a half-sunken hatch. The route had been long. Steady. Quiet. He avoided the direct paths. Too many eyes in the open.
He moved along the broken edge of what used to be a pedestrian bridge. The iron rails had rusted out, but the frame still held if you didn't weigh too much or hesitate mid-step. On the other side, a crater had swallowed a good stretch of road. The building where the body lay was half hanging into it.
He approached slow, reading the weight lines in the debris. The collapse was recent. Rain hadn't soaked in yet. The metal still groaned when it shifted.
And that's where he saw the hand. Pale. Outstretched. Not clawing, not curled, just open.
Warren crouched low and stepped carefully over broken tiles and the spilled wreck of old packaging that once meant comfort. He reached the man's side in silence.
His throat had been cut. Clean. Deliberate. A mercy, not a robbery. Probably all someone could do as the building collapsed around them. Maybe a companion. Maybe a loved one, giving him a faster death before the pain swallowed him.
The chip in the back of his neck was still intact. Untouched.
Whoever had done it hadn't come back. Yet.
But Warren was here now. And first meant rightful claim.
He drew the pocket knife from his coat. It fit his grip like it had always belonged there.
He slid the blade into the base of the man's neck. A slow cut, deep enough to reach the chip. He worked methodically, just enough to pry the fragment out with two fingers.
It came free without resistance. He wrapped it in cloth. Secured it in his jacket. Moved on.
Then, without ceremony but not without meaning, he reached down and closed the man's eyes.
The silence afterward felt heavier than the steel above them.
There were still rules followed by the old scavengers who lived long enough to remember them.
You took tech. Food. Medicine. But not the memories. Not the names carved in tags. Not the things that made the dead still human.
Not the personal effects.
He could still hear her voice.
Mara had found him the first time he tried to strip a body for everything it had. She hadn't yelled. She hadn't struck him. She just walked up, grabbed his wrist, and turned it until he dropped the wedding ring.
"You want the sweater? Fine," she'd said. "It's warm. It'll keep you alive. You want the knife? That's fair. It's sharp. But you don't take that ring. You don't need a stranger's grief."
He remembered standing there, covered in dirt, blood under his fingernails, stomach hollow. She crouched beside the corpse and gently rolled the body over so it wouldn't be face-up.
Then she looked at Warren. Right in the eyes.
"The dead already gave us what they could. Don't steal what they meant."
He hadn't understood it fully then. But he remembered.
He remembered her closing the man's eyes, just like he did now.
He remembered her walking on without looking back.
And he remembered the stillness she left behind.
Warren stood up. No words. No noise. Just forward again.
This place would not hold him.
He was burning daylight a rare commodity in a world so bleak.
The third fragment came with pain.
Warren didn't feel fear when he stepped into the building. He felt pressure. Like a muscle pulling tight before a strike. He moved like a man in a rhythm only he could hear.
The layout was wrong. The structure had folded in on itself. Load-bearing beams snapped like splinters. Rain had eaten the plaster. Light came in sideways. Dust held still like it knew not to move.
His footfalls didn't echo. They landed. That was all.
Warren found the creature inside the collapsed building, crouched low in a dark corner, avoiding the daylight. It was larger than it should have been. Built wrong. Smaller than a Brute. Its movements were off. Fast in bursts. Too fast.
Styll shifted suddenly inside his coat. No sound. Just pressure and movement. Then she slipped out, silent as mist, and vanished behind rubble.
Warren froze.
He knew better than to ignore her instincts.
The Broken crouched in the corner, spine notched wrong, body too solid, too still. Eyes milk-white, face smeared in something that looked like memory and rot. Smaller than a Brute, thicker than a Runner. Movement too clean to be a Mutant.
The thing that charged out of the dark wasn't just another Broken.
It was something else. Wrong in shape and speed. Its strikes were fast, faster than they should have been. Not wild. Not flailing. A flurry. Almost a combo.
Warren didn't have a name for it. He didn't know what template it followed, if any. Just that it moved like it had learned something it shouldn't have. Not intelligent. But efficient.
There was no mistaking the precision behind the attacks. Reflexive. Instinctive. Something carried. Something remembered.
That unsettled him more than the force.
And then the thing moved.
It wasn't hiding. It was waiting.
It stood in a slow push of muscle and timing. Not the twitch of a monster. The rise of a fighter.
Warren smiled.
This was no trap. This was an invitation.
Warren stepped forward.
The Broken moved first.
A blur. A sweep. Arm extended fast and low. Warren ducked. Rolled. The pipe came up underhand. Hit the thing's ribs and made it grunt.
It recovered in an instant. No stagger. No pain. Just recalculation.
Warren moved faster.
He slammed his elbow into its chest. Dropped low. Grabbed its leg and twisted. It fell, but it didn't crash. It landed like a predator.
They met again.
It struck at his face. He blocked with the pipe. Sparks. Blood. Noise.
He didn't retreat.
He advanced.
Each movement was intentional. Each strike sharp. He was faster now. Smarter. This wasn't like the first time he'd fought. He knew what his body could do.
And he wanted to break something person-shaped.
The Broken pivoted and tried a low hook. Warren caught it with one hand, spun inside, and slammed its head against the concrete pillar.
A crack. But not enough.
They separated. Regathered. Breathed.
Warren lunged. No warning. Just movement.
The pipe came down. Once. Twice. The Broken blocked one. Took the second. Bit at him.
He let it. Let it close the distance.
Then he drove his forehead into its skull. A dull thud. Bone to bone. No recoil.
The Broken reeled. Warren followed.
He tackled it, full weight. Brought them both to the floor. Ribs to ground. Shoulder to concrete. Pipe across the throat.
The Broken bucked. Hard. Muscles surging.
Warren didn't care. He braced. Endured.
Then he let go.
Let the thing turn.
And as it did, he drove the pipe into its chin. Upward.
It screamed. Finally.
He twisted. Pulled. Reversed grip. Drove the pipe into its temple. The flesh cracked. The skull groaned.
It grabbed his wrist. Strong. Wrong.
Warren bit down on his own tongue. Drew blood. Used the pain. Used the taste.
He pressed harder.
Something inside the Broken gave.
He didn't stop when it stopped moving. Didn't stop when its grip loosened. Didn't stop when the twitching faded.
He stopped when the silence was pure again.
Then he stood.
Breathing heavy. Not from fatigue. From restraint.
He looked at his hands. Bloody. Not trembling.
He didn't walk away unscathed.
The creature had caught him hard. His side throbbed with every breath. One leg dragged slightly. He'd landed wrong. Maybe torn something. His knuckles were split again, leaking blood down the pipe's grip.
The headbutt might have been a mistake. His world was still swimming.
As he leaned over the body, breathing through clenched teeth, Styll reappeared. She slipped out from behind a torn beam and returned to him without hesitation. Calm. Composed. Watching.
He looked down at her.
"You felt it coming, didn't you?"
She blinked once.
Warren smiled faintly, pain curling at the edge of it. "Good."
She wasn't just alive.
She was useful.
When he finally pulled the fragment free, what came out wasn't ordinary.
The fragment was different.
Larger. Heavier. Complex in a way that made the others look like scraps.
Warren narrowed his eyes. Focused. The Examine skill triggered automatically.
[Examine]
Type: Fragment
Modification History: Adaptive Layer Present
Embedded Skill: Quick Reflexes (Passive)
Origin: Unknown
Notes: Fragment contains unauthorized optimization protocol. Manual integration may yield deleterious effects.
An embedded skill.
Interesting. He had heard rumors about them but didn't think they were real.
Quick Reflexes.
That explained the fight. That thing hadn't just been strong. It had been fast. Faster than it should've been. Something had enhanced it.
Now he held the reason why.
He wrapped the fragment tightly, storing it away from the others.
No accidental fusion.
Not again.
And then he let the memory return. Cold. Clear.
The manual that had been in her pack. Heavy canvas-bound. Hand-sewn spine. Pages uneven, some brittle with time. No title. No table of contents. Just scavenger knowledge stitched from mistakes.
He remembered reading it by the light of a trash fire when he thought Mara was sleeping. The ink ran in places. Water damage or tears. Her handwriting wasn't elegant, but it was exact. Sharp like her voice. Practical like her hands.
One section had been labeled simply: SLOTS.
"Everyone starts with two," it said. "Doesn't matter where you're from. If the chip works, the System gives you two open skill slots at boot."
Then beneath that: "You don't earn them. You get them. Like lungs."
He'd stared at that phrasing for a long time the first time he read it.
There was more.
"Slot gains are patterned. You get a new one every ten levels. Regular ones."
A gap, then: "Class slots come when the System tags you. Or when you build it yourself. Those are separate. Two total. Locked to the class you form. Can't be changed."
Someone else had scribbled underneath in smaller print:
"Don't worry about wasting your class slots on anything weak. They evolve."
At the bottom of the page, there was another line. Different ink. Maybe Mara's father.
"Some say there's another. Not one you choose. Something that grows in you. Based on what you are. Nobody talks about it, but I've seen people with a skill past what they should. Personal. Quiet. Like a secret the System didn't know how to classify."
Warren had traced that line more than once.
It wasn't listed anywhere else in the manual. Just there. A single note. One that stuck with him.
One section broke down the types of skills and the slots they filled. It wasn't a complete guide. Nothing ever was. But it was enough.
"Two regular skill slots to start," it said. "You can fill them with crafted skills. Some people say fragments carry something extra."
She had underlined it twice. "The System won't help you. If you want it, take it."
There was a scribbled diagram beneath it. A rough box marked with arrows, circles, and one label that simply read: CLASS SKILLS.
"When you get a class, it gives you two more. Locked ones. Class-specific. Pick them or the System will. Either way, you're stuck with what you get."
And lower down, faded but legible:
He hadn't understood it fully then. He barely understood it now. But the idea stuck. Something personal. Something the System couldn't assign. Just shape. Something that listened.
The next section. CLASS FORMATION.
"Class design available through manual integration of sufficient fragments. Stability not guaranteed."
Another line beneath it: "Six exactly."
There were notes in the margins. Some hers. Some older.
"Doesn't matter how you get the fragments. Steal, salvage, trade. You just need six. Put them in a functioning terminal with a System link (hopefully unregistered). Pick the class you want. About sixty percent chance it works like you want. Thirty it doesn't. And ten you don't walk away at all. Just an observation the group was small sooo take from that what you will"
One phrase scratched out and rewritten: "Don't chase the class. Chase the cause."
He remembered that one most.
He hadn't understood it back then. Thought it was philosophy. Just one of those survivor riddles that don't mean anything until you bleed for the answer.
Now he knew better.
Class wasn't a title. It was a framework. A lever. The System used it to box you in. Assign value. Define limits. You got what it thought you were worth. What role it needed you to fill.
Unless you took that choice yourself.
Mara hadn't told him what she would've picked. Maybe she never decided. Maybe that was the lesson.
He now had six.
One of them had a skill.
And that meant only one thing.
He could build his class.
But it wasn't about class. Not really.
It was about trust. Or the lack of it.
He didn't trust the System to define him. Didn't trust it to see him clearly.
It didn't matter what the options were. Soldier. Surgeon. Scientist. Those were roles, not answers. Names the System liked. Names it printed in clean lines on clean screens in places Warren would never go.
He would name himself.
The manual didn't say what would happen after. No one wrote that part down. Maybe they didn't live long enough to record it.
Warren didn't care.
He had the fragments. He had the will.
And if it all went wrong, then good. That meant he'd finally hit something real.
The notification had been blinking at the edge of his vision it had been there since the end of the fight.
LEVEL UP.
You have reached Level 4.
Level 4.
One more level and the world would change forever.