"You actually came back."
The words hang in the cold, thin air between them, heavy with a disbelief that borders on accusation.
Maya's pistol is still clutched in her hand, though lowered now, her knuckles white. Her eyes, sharp and devastatingly weary, scan Alex from head to toe.
They linger on the clean trek suit, the sturdy backpack bulging with unseen contents, the new rifle slung across his back, the absence of fresh wounds beyond the ones she'd patched seven long days ago. He looks… whole.
Fed. Impossibly out of place. A ghost wearing borrowed flesh.
Alex offers a small, tired smile, raising his hands slowly in a placating gesture.
The rooftop wind whips strands of his hair across his face.
"I told you I would," he says simply, his voice rough but steady. He gestures with his head towards the thin plume of black smoke still curling into the blood-red sky from the base of the tower compound. "Looks like I missed the party."
Her expression hardens instantly. The brief flicker of wonder, of impossible hope, vanishes like morning mist, replaced by the grim, pragmatic mask of Sergeant Rostova. Survival mode re-engaged.
"Party's not over," she bites out, her gaze snapping back to the desolate horizon beyond the sandbag parapet. She limps slightly as she moves back to her lookout position, her rifle cradled possessively.
"They pulled back after the main assault failed, but they didn't run. Scrappers are like rabid dogs – too stupid to know when they're beaten, too hungry to give up." She spits contemptuously over the edge. "They're regrouping. Probably arguing over who gets to wear Scab's finger-bone necklace now."
He moves cautiously to stand beside her, his own rifle held at a low ready, scanning the vast, empty panorama of red dust and shattered concrete.
The smoke, he now sees, comes from the burning pyre of bodies and wreckage near the bunker entrance. She'd turned the chokepoint into a charnel house. Guilt, sharp and immediate, cuts through him.
'She fought them off. Alone. And got hurt doing it. All because I vanished.'
"How bad?" he asks, his voice low, his eyes tracking the distant shapes of carrion birds circling over the battlefield.
"Lost count around twenty," she says flatly, her voice devoid of emotion. Just a number. A butcher's tally.
"Used the last Claymore on a flanking group that tried to scale the west side near the antenna array. Bastards were smarter than I gave them credit for. Your little…zap trap… definitely surprised them, though."
She spares him a sideways glance, a flicker of grudging respect in her eyes before they turn back to scanning the wasteland. "Down to maybe forty rounds for the rifle, one full clip for the sidearm."
She nods towards his Stalker-1. "Hope you brought ammo for that shiny new toy."
"Enough for now," he replies. He needs to sell the lie, needs to make it stick.
Now. While she's still processing his return. "My village… the elders weren't happy I left without permission. It's… complicated. Strict rules about contact with the outside."
He chooses his words carefully, weaving a narrative around the kernel of truth – his isolation.
"But when I told them about you, about the Scrappers closing in…" He shrugs, trying to project a nonchalant confidence he doesn't feel.
"They agreed this threat needed dealing with. They gave me supplies." He taps the backpack slung awkwardly over his shoulder.
"The travel method my people use… it's not reliable. Drains the power source completely. Took seven days to recharge, just like I thought it might."
He swings the heavy backpack off his shoulders and sets it down on the gritty rooftop deck with a soft thud. He kneels, deliberately making his movements seem natural, accessing the System's [Inventory] with a thought while pretending to rummage through the pack. "But I brought supplies."
He pulls out the items one by one, laying them out like offerings. Three sealed one-liter bottles of purified water. A stack of vacuum-sealed MRE pouches. More antiseptic wipes and sterile bandages than she'd probably seen in years. A spare, high-capacity power cell for his flashlight – or her rifle scope. And, nestled carefully at the bottom like a crown jewel, another pristine chocolate bar.
Maya stares at the cache, her tough facade cracking. Her breath hitches. It's a treasure beyond measure in this world. Food that wasn't scavenged from hundred-year-old ruins potentially crawling with bacteria. Medicine that wasn't brewed from questionable herbs. Proof of a world beyond the immediate, brutal struggle for existence.
She picks up an MRE pouch, turning it over in her hands, her fingers tracing the faded, pre-Calamity military markings. "Self-heating chemical ration packs," she murmurs, her voice thick with something Alex realizes is raw nostalgia.
"Haven't seen tech like this since basic training, before everything went to hell." She looks up at him, her eyes searching his face, the suspicion warring with a desperate, burgeoning hope. "Your 'village' must be something else entirely, Alex."
"We hold onto the old ways," he says vaguely, meeting her gaze. He offers her the chocolate bar. "Energy boost?"
She takes it, her fingers brushing his. A small spark, unexpected and electric, passes between them. A small, genuine smile touches her lips, transforming her face, softening the hard lines etched by years of survival. "You might just be worth the trouble after all, city boy."
They share the chocolate in silence, breaking off small pieces, savoring the rich, sweet taste – a ghost of a forgotten civilization. The simple act feels like a ritual, a fragile truce declared amidst the ruins. The shared sweetness, the quiet understanding in the face of overwhelming danger, feels more significant, more binding, than any spoken vow.
Alex fell into thought, the reality of his situation settling in with cold clarity. He'd survived. He'd returned. He'd found her alive. He'd even managed, somehow, to sell his ridiculous lie, bolstered by the undeniable proof in his pack. But looking out at the vast, hostile wasteland stretching to the blood-red horizon, at the distant quarry where the remnants of the Scrapper tribe were undoubtedly nursing their wounds and plotting their revenge, he knew this tower wasn't a solution. It was a temporary reprieve. A concrete coffin waiting to be sealed.
"You were right before," he says, breaking the comfortable silence, his voice low and serious. "We can't stay here. They'll be back. With bigger numbers, better tactics. They're savages, but they're not entirely stupid. They know our defenses now. They know where the traps are."
Maya nods grimly, her gaze fixed on the distant quarry, her brief moment of softness gone. "They'll try to starve us out," she says, her voice hard again. "Or just keep throwing bodies at the walls until we run out of bullets. It's what they do. Grind you down."
"That Project Chimera place you mentioned," Alex prompts, turning the conversation towards the future, towards the only sliver of hope he can see. "The underground base. You really think it's viable? You said it was abandoned, a deatrap."
"It is suicide," Maya admits bluntly, turning to face him. There's no fear in her eyes, only a cold, pragmatic assessment of the odds. "But staying here is also suicide, just slower, and frankly, more boring." A flicker of her teasing smile returns, sharp and dangerous. "Chimera is our only chance for a real fortress. Power. Defenses. Maybe even answers about what the hell happened to this world." She gives him a sideways glance, her smile fading. "Assuming the legends are true and it hasn't become a nest for something worse than Scrappers. The stories about that place… they aren't pretty."
He remembers the AI's words from his previous, aborted timeline, the one he'd forcibly pushed from his mind. Reapers. Created here. He shoves the thought down again, harder this time. That was a ghost from another life. This time, he's going in blind, relying only on his wits, his System, and Maya's skill. He needs this base. He needs its resources. He needs its power. For Maya. For himself. For the empire he plans to build.
"Okay," he says, the decision solidifying in his gut, heavy and irreversible. "Okay. We go for Chimera."
Maya turns to face him fully, her expression serious, demanding. "This isn't a scavenger run, Alex. This isn't dipping your toes in the water. This is a one-way trip into the heart of the darkness. If we go, we go all in. We watch each other's backs. No second chances. No more… disappearing acts." Her eyes bore into his, sharp and unwavering, demanding an honesty he can't fully give. "Can I trust you? Really trust you?"
He meets her gaze, the weight of his secret, his dual existence, pressing down on him. He can't tell her he vanishes into another dimension. He can't tell her about the System whispering in his mind. But he can give her the truth that matters right now.
"You can trust me to get us there," he says, his voice steady and low, filled with a conviction that surprises them both. "You can trust me to have your back against whatever's waiting for us. And you can trust me," he adds, a grim smile touching his lips, "to find a way. That's what I do."
It is not a complete promise, but it is an honest one, forged in the crucible of their shared desperation.
Maya searches his eyes for a long moment, weighing the man against the impossibility he represents. Then, she nods again, a sharp, decisive movement. The alliance is forged. Not in elaborate oaths, but in a mutual, unspoken agreement to face the overwhelming odds together.
"Alright, city boy," she says, the nickname now holding a grudging affection. A hint of her old teasing tone returns, though it's brittle now, edged with the harsh reality of their impending suicide mission. "Hope your village taught you how to move fast on a busted ankle."
She turns back to the map she'd unrolled earlier, now spread across the sandbags.
"Because we need to figure out how the hell we get across fifty klicks of hostile territory, past a Scrapper war party, and into a legendary deatrap… before those bastards outside decide to come back and finish the job."