The truck rolled over another stretch of broken highway before the road turned into something more controlled.
The dirt smoothed out. The ditches deepened. Fences appeared again, taller this time and built with intent instead of desperation. Zubair's hands stayed steady on the wheel, but the creature inside Sera watched the way his shoulders shifted.
This was guarded land… Apparently, someone still cared about this stretch for some reason.
Her creature stirred in her chest. Order. Control. They are trying to hold the disease under a lid. They always forget the lid is weaker than what it covers.
She let her head rest against the window and watched the horizon.
The shapes ahead rose out of the haze in slow layers. Low walls first. Then taller structures. White panels flashed in the sun. Antennas and towers speared upward in clean lines. Vehicles sat in neat rows along one side, none were rusted or abandoned.
It was the CDC again.
