[...crackle... hiss... This is the Ghost of I-70. If you can hear this, you're one of the lucky ones. Or the damned. Time is 0-dark-useless. It's just... the Silence now.］
The static was a constant. A sound like grinding teeth in the back of Silas's skull.
[...Denver's gone. Don't go there. The buildings are humming a tune that'll turn your brain to soup. I repeat, Denver is a dead frequency.］
The voice on the radio was young, frayed with terror.
[For any survivors moving west: they're learning. Don't answer the whispers from empty cars. Don't trust the faces you see in the reflections. And for God's sake, don't listen to the static for too long. It starts talking back.]
[This broadcast will... hiss... repeat... crackle...]
Silas killed the power to the radio. The growl of the Leviathan's diesel engine was a more comforting sound.
It was real.
The convoy was a line of rust and misery crawling west. Eighteen-wheelers, RVs, pickups. All of them running from the same thing. Not monsters. Not a plague. They were running from the quiet madness that had swallowed the world.
The Great Silence.
It hadn't been an explosion; it had been a whisper. A psychic infection that turned cities into surrealist nightmares and people into… Echoes. Physical ghosts born from their final, overwhelming emotions.
He'd seen an Echo of pure rage melt asphalt into glass. He'd seen an Echo of grief rust a bridge to dust in minutes.
You couldn't shoot a feeling.
The convoy slowed to a stop. The sun was a sick orange stain bleeding across the sky. Camp for the night. A loose circle of metal, a fortress built of paranoia.
Silas stayed in his cab, watching. He saw the others emerge—families in box trucks, lone wolves with shotguns. This wasn't a community. It was a temporary truce.
Everyone knew the rules of the road.
First Rule: Don't fall behind.
Second Rule: Hoard your resources.
The first rule was written in the blood of those who'd had engine trouble. The convoy didn't wait. To stop was to invite the Silence to find you.
Silas had joined this group in Wyoming. He'd leave them in Utah. They were just scenery.
His gaze swept the camp, assessing. A man arguing with his wife over a can of beans. A group of men eyeing a lone pickup with a full fuel canister.
Weakness. Opportunity.
But not enough to act on. Not yet.
He squeezed a gray, tasteless nutrient paste into his mouth. It was calories.
A light, hesitant knock came on his passenger-side door. He ignored it. Another knock, harder this time.
Silas turned his head. A young woman stood there, maybe twenty, her face too thin, her eyes too wide. He didn't know her name. He didn't want to.
She pressed her face to the armored glass. "Please," she mouthed, her voice a faint whisper against the wind. "My brother… he's sick. We don't have any medicine. Just a few pills?"
Silas stared, his face a mask. His gaze was cold, analytical. An equation.
Her brother gets sick. She uses their resources. He dies. She becomes a burden. Or worse, the grief turns her into an Echo. A new problem for him.
He simply shook his head once, a short, sharp motion, and turned away. He heard a choked sob, then her footsteps retreating into the gloom.
He felt nothing. Compassion was a luxury for a world that no longer existed.
The only thing that mattered was the Leviathan. His home. His weapon. A military M915A5 wrecker, already a beast before he'd started reinforcing it with scrap.
But against the true horrors of the Silence, it was just a bigger tomb.
He'd seen an Echo of pure, agonizing patience melt an entire traffic jam—cars, asphalt, bone—into dust. His pistol wouldn't have helped. The Leviathan's steel plating wouldn't have helped.
He was a soldier fighting an enemy without a body.
He leaned back, the worn seat groaning. His fingers found the faded photo tucked into the sun visor. A woman with a tired smile, a little girl on her hip with a gap-toothed grin.
His wife. His daughter.
He hadn't looked at it in months. He didn't need to. Their faces were burned into the back of his eyelids.
He remembered coming home. The house was quiet. Too quiet. They were in the living room, their forms flickering, humming with a terrible, loving static. An Echo of a family's final, desperate wait.
He closed his eyes, the memory a shard of glass in his gut.
He had killed them.
He had harvested his own family.
His fingers tightened on the photo. Pain, raw and absolute, lanced through him. A fresh wave of despair. The kind of soul-crushing emptiness that birthed Echoes.
Then, something else.
A cold, clear thought, not his own, cut through the grief like a surgeon's scalpel.
[EMOTIONAL SPIKE DETECTED: GRIEF, RAGE, DESPAIR.］
[THRESHOLD MET.］
[HOST PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: COMPATIBLE.］
Silas's eyes snapped open. The world had a faint, crimson overlay. Data streams flickered at the edge of his vision.
[SYSTEM ABYSSAL SCAVENGER: ACTIVATION COMPLETE.］
[BONDING WITH HOST CONSCIOUSNESS…］
[BONDING SUCCESSFUL.］
"What the hell…?" he breathed.
The left side of his vision was now a minimalist, blood-red interface.
[HOST STATUS: NOMINAL.］
[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVAL VIA ENTROPIC ACQUISITION.］
[PRIMARY RESOURCE: ENTROPY.］
A system. His first thought wasn't wonder. It was suspicion. Another trick of the Silence?
[NEGATIVE. SYSTEM IS A PARASITIC REALITY-ANCHOR. YOUR SURVIVAL ENSURES SYSTEM'S CONTINUITY.］
[CURRENT ENTROPY: 0.］
A parasite. Honest, at least. He almost respected the cold, brutal logic.
[ANALYZING IMMEDIATE THREATS: RESOURCE DEPLETION, LOW-TIER ECHOES, HUMAN COMPETITORS.］
[ANALYZING HOST ASSETS: 1x MODIFIED M915A5 WRECKER (THE LEVIATHAN), 1x STANDARD-ISSUE PISTOL (INEFFECTIVE), 1x DAMAGED ENERGY CELL (INERT).］
[SYSTEM DETECTS OPPORTUNITY FOR IMMEDIATE UPGRADE.］
Silas's eyes narrowed. He looked at the useless pistol on his dashboard, then at the dead energy cell he'd pulled from a wrecked humvee. It was a heavy, inert brick.
[HOST IS WEAK. INITIAL BOOST REQUIRED.]
[OFFERING BOOTSTRAP INFUSION: 300 ENTROPY.]
[REPAYMENT REQUIRED: 450 ENTROPY.］
［DEADLINE: 7 CYCLES.］
[FAILURE TO REPAY WILL RESULT IN HOST LIQUIDATION.]
Liquidation. A cold word for being devoured from the inside out. This wasn't a partner. It was a predator offering a loan.
But any tool was a good tool if it kept you alive one more day.
"Accept," Silas said, his voice a harsh whisper.
[INFUSION ACCEPTED. ENTROPY: 300.]
A feeling like ice water flowed through his veins, sharp and invigorating. The exhaustion that had been clinging to him for weeks receded.
[BLUEPRINT AVAILABLE: RESONANCE PISTOL (TIER-0).］
[FUSES CONVENTIONAL FIREARM WITH ENERGY CELL. CREATES PROTOTYPE WEAPON CAPABLE OF DAMAGING NON-CORPOREAL ENTITIES (ECHOES).]
[REQUIREMENTS: 1x PISTOL, 1x ENERGY CELL, 250 ENTROPY.］
[RECONFIGURE?］
He didn't hesitate. His current gun was a paperweight against the real threats. This was his only chance.
He grabbed the pistol and the energy cell, holding them together.
"Reconfigure."
The metal bracer on his left arm—a detail he hadn't noticed until now—glowed with a crimson light. The world outside the cockpit faded.
[CONFIRMED. INITIATING RECONFIGURATION.]
[ESTIMATED TIME: 4 HOURS, 59 MINUTES, 59 SECONDS.]
A countdown timer appeared, each descending number a drop of blood.
[04:59:58]
Silas watched as the pistol and energy cell in his hands began to distort, their forms softening like hot wax. A low hum filled the cab, a sound of creation born from destruction.
Outside, the convoy settled into an uneasy sleep. But inside the Leviathan, Silas was awake.
For the first time since the world ended, he wasn't just surviving.
He was upgrading.