Day 20.
The Roof (Sector 1).
Sauget, Illinois.
06:00 Hours.
Silence was the loudest sound in the world.
For seventy-two hours, the Silo had vibrated with the acoustic signature of hell. First, it was the wet, tearing sound of the Fuser being birthed from the biomass of forty corpses. Then came the roar of the napalm flush, a sound like the sky ripping open. And finally, the three-day siege of the stragglers—thousands of hands beating against the sealed blast doors of the lower levels, a rhythmic, desperate drumming that vibrated through the steel skeleton of the factory.
But this morning, the drumming had stopped.
I stood on the roof of the Coldwell complex, the wind whipping my canvas coat around my legs. The air tasted of wet ash, ozone, and the lingering, copper-sweet scent of cooked meat.
My leg was stiff. The acid burn from the Pus-Bomber incident on Day 16 had scabbed over into a tight, shiny patch of scar tissue the size of a dinner plate. It pulled every time I walked, a constant reminder that I was made of meat in a world of steel and teeth.
I walked to the edge of the parapet and looked down.
The courtyard was a moonscape.
The Gutter—once a precision-engineered killbox—was choked with sludge. The trenches were filled to the brim with a slurry of gelatinous grey matter and bones that hadn't fully dissolved.
The Eastern Wall was gone. In its place was a mound of melted slag—concrete, rebar, and the fused remains of the dump truck we'd used as a plug. The acid had turned it into a glassy, obsidian-like ramp.
And the factory floor... I could see it through the shattered skylights. It was a blackened shell. The assembly lines were gone, melted into abstract art by the napalm flush. The structural pillars were scorched black, but they held.
"They're gone," Yana said.
I hadn't heard her approach. The Shadow Class made her silent as a ghost, but even without the stealth passive, she was quiet these days. We all were. Words burned calories.
She stood beside me, wrapping her arms around herself against the chill. Her courier leathers were stained dark with dried blood that wasn't hers. Her hazel eyes were dull, the orange fire of the System sync dimmed by exhaustion.
"The horde moved on," I said, my voice rasping. "Biomass exhausted. They picked the bone clean and realized there was no marrow left. They're heading west, toward the city. Toward the bigger heat signatures."
I raised my binoculars and scanned the horizon.
The Enclave blockade on the access road was gone.
There were no Humvees. No white trucks. Just tire tracks deep in the mud, turning around and heading back to their bunkers.
"They retreated?" Yana asked, squinting at the empty road.
"They did the math," I said. "They saw the fire. They saw the Fuser. They realized Sector 1 isn't a resource anymore; it's a hazard. Sterling is a bureaucrat. He doesn't fight wars of attrition. He cuts his losses."
"We survived," Yana whispered. She sounded surprised. She sounded like she didn't believe it.
"We didn't survive," I corrected, lowering the binoculars. "We advanced."
I looked at the sky. It was a bruised purple, the sun struggling to break through the smog layer. The clouds looked like infected tissue.
Then, the System chimed.
It wasn't the jagged, static screech of a glitch or the urgent, throbbing alarm of a threat detection. It was a pure, crystalline tone. A bell ringing in high orbit, clear and resonant.
It brought me to my knees.
`[SIEGE EVENT COMPLETE.]`
`[SURVIVAL BONUS: APPLIED.]`
`[THREATS NEUTRALIZED: TIER 3 (FUSER), TIER 2 (SWARM).]`
My vision filled with cascading blue text. It scrolled so fast it made me dizzy.
`[CALCULATING TERRITORY INTEGRITY... CRITICAL.]`
`[CALCULATING BIOMASS CONVERSION... OPTIMAL.]`
`[CALCULATING RUTHLESSNESS... HIGH.]`
The numbers spun, a slot machine of fate.
`[CURRENT RANK: 412.]`
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. The air hissed through my teeth.
412.
In the first timeline, I died at Rank 47. But I hadn't cracked the Top 500 until Day 28. To be here, now, on Day 20... it was statistically improbable. It was a miracle built on bones and napalm.
We were contenders.
"Jack," Boyd's voice crackled over the intercom. "The map table. It's... it's doing something."
"I'm coming down," I said.
I turned to the roof hatch. "Travis!"
A pile of rubble near the ventilation units shifted. Travis sat up.
He had been sleeping under a tarp, covered in dust. He looked like a golem rising from the earth. He was shirtless, his skin a patchwork of grey calluses and healing acid burns. The Tank Class physiology had stripped the fat from his body, leaving only dense, corded muscle that looked like steel cables wrapped in leather.
His eyes glowed with a low, steady orange light.
"Boss?" his voice was a tectonic rumble.
"Stay on watch," I ordered. "If anything moves within a hundred meters, kill it. If the Enclave sends a drone, swat it."
Travis nodded slowly. He picked up his weapon—a new one. The telephone pole had shattered during the siege. Now, he wielded a drive shaft ripped from the wrecked semi-truck, a six-foot bar of solid steel with a gear welded to the end.
"Smash," Travis grunted. He settled back down, his eyes scanning the horizon with predatory patience.
I climbed down the ladder to the Command Deck.
The air inside the office was stale, smelling of ozone and unwashed bodies. Boyd was standing by the holographic table, his hands trembling. Helen was sitting in the corner, smoking a cigarette that was mostly ash.
And Paige.
She was on her knees, scrubbing the floor with a rag and a bucket of grey water. She wore the grey jumpsuit of a Null, stained and torn. She didn't look up when I entered. She just kept scrubbing, a rhythmic, mindless motion. Swish. Swish.
"It started vibrating," Boyd said, pointing at the table. "I didn't touch it."
I limped to the table.
The blue wireframe of the Silo—the map we had used to fight the war—was gone.
In its place was a golden light.
It started as a single pixel in the center of the projector, then expanded, blooming like a nuclear flower. It filled the room with a warmth that I hadn't felt since before the sky turned blue. It washed out the shadows. It made the grime on the walls look like gold dust.
"What is that?" Paige stopped scrubbing. She looked up, her eyes wide and hungry, reflecting the light.
"The prize," I said.
The hologram resolved.
It wasn't a map. It was a window.
I saw a city.
Not a ruin. Not a fortress. A pristine, shining metropolis. Towers of white glass and living greenery spiraled into a sky that was a perfect, unpolluted azure. I saw water—clean, blue water—flowing through canals that wound between the buildings. I saw fields of wheat waving in a breeze that didn't smell of sulfur.
I saw technology that defied physics—vehicles floating on magnetic currents, drones weaving intricate patterns of light.
And I saw people.
Thousands of them. Healthy. Whole. Walking through the streets without weapons. They were laughing. They were eating fruit. They looked... safe.
NEW EDEN.
`[THE SEED CODE.]`
`[WINNER TAKES ALL.]`
"It's beautiful," Helen whispered. She stood up, the cigarette falling from her fingers. Tears streamed down her face, cutting tracks through the dirt. "It's real. Oh god, Jack, it's real."
"It's a carrot," I said, my voice cold. The Cruelty trait dampened the awe, analyzing the data instead of the beauty. "It's the bait in the trap."
The image flickered.
ZZZT.
Static cut through the paradise. The golden light convulsed, turning a violent, bloody crimson.
For a split second, the image changed.
The white towers turned black, dripping with oil. The blue sky turned the color of a fresh bruise. The canals weren't filled with water; they were filled with magma.
And the people...
The people weren't walking. They were chained. Millions of them, marching in endless columns toward a massive, gaping furnace in the center of the city. They were wailing, their skin flayed, their bodies twisted into tools.
I saw a throne made of bones at the top of the highest tower. And sitting on it was a shadow.
[GLITCH DETECTED.]
[REALITY FRAGMENT: HELLSCAPE VARIANT.]
[SOURCE: THE ROOT.]
`[ROOT: BEAUTIFUL, ISN'T IT? A WORLD OF ETERNAL STRUGGLE. A WORLD WHERE THE STRONG EAT FOREVER.]`
Then, it snapped back to paradise. The golden light returned, hiding the horror beneath the skin of the simulation.
`[ONLY THE TOP 10 SURVIVE.]`
`[DAYS REMAINING: 10.]`
The hologram vanished.
The room plunged back into the grey gloom of the factory. The warmth evaporated, leaving us cold and small.
The silence returned, heavier than before.
"Did you see that?" Boyd asked, his voice trembling. He gripped the edge of the table. "It... it changed. For a second, it was..."
"I saw it," I said.
"Which one is real?" Yana asked from the doorway. She had followed me down. "The heaven or the hell?"
"It depends on who wins," I said.
I walked to the floor safe. I spun the dial. October 1st.
The heavy door creaked open.
I took out the Pelican case. I set it on the table where the hologram had been.
I opened it.
Five vials of Quintuple Serum. The liquid swirled, glowing with its own internal light.
"We're Rank 412," I said to the room. "That means there are four hundred and eleven warlords stronger, crueler, and better prepared than us. And they all just saw that video. They all know what the prize is."
I looked at the crew.
Helen, the medic who had amputated limbs with a hacksaw. Boyd, the kid who had built a flamethrower to burn people alive. Yana, the assassin who had executed Miller without blinking. And Paige, the traitor turned slave, staring at the floor where the golden light had been.
We were broken. We were starving. We were monsters.
But we were our monsters.
"The tutorial is over," I said. "The grind is done. Now, the war starts."
I picked up a vial of serum. I held it up to the light.
"The Enclave retreated, but they'll talk. They'll tell the other factions about the fire. About the Fuser. We aren't a secret anymore. We're a target."
I looked at Boyd.
"Get the welders," I ordered. "We're reinforcing the roof. If they come by air, we need to be ready."
"Helen," I said. "Inventory the serum. We're going to need it. If Travis goes down, Yana is next in line for the injection."
Yana stiffened, but she didn't argue. She nodded.
I looked at Paige.
"Get back to work," I said. "The floor isn't clean."
Paige flinched. She dipped her rag into the grey water and started scrubbing again. Swish. Swish.
I looked at the black screen of the map table.
Ten days.
Ten days to climb four hundred ranks. Ten days to hunt down the other territory holders and burn them out of their holes. Ten days to ensure that the "New Eden" wasn't a furnace.
Or maybe it didn't matter. Maybe we were already in the furnace.
`[PHASE 4 COMPLETE.]`
`[PHASE 5 INITIATED: THE CULL.]`
I touched the cold spot in my chest where my heart used to be. The Cruelty trait hummed, a steady, comforting vibration.
"Let's go to work," I whispered.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 20
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) ██████░░░░ 6/10 Nodes
RANK: 412 (Contender)
STATUS: SIEGE SURVIVED
Base Condition: Critical (Level 1 Lost)
Sanity: 70%
Next Event: The Hunt / Top 100 Push