Day 22.
The North Gate.
Sauget, Illinois.
11:00 Hours.
The convoy that rolled up to the Silo didn't look like a war party. It looked like a funeral procession.
Three vehicles. A rusted school bus painted matte grey, a delivery van with armor plates welded over the windshield, and a pickup truck dragging a trailer full of scrap. They moved slowly, engines coughing, suspension groaning under the weight of desperate people.
I stood on the catwalk, watching them through the scope.
"Three factions," I said. "Rank 460. Rank 438. Rank 422. Bottom of the barrel."
"They aren't attacking," Yana said. She was sharpening her knife—a nervous habit she'd picked up since the pregnancy test. "They're parking. White flags."
"Open the gate," I ordered. "But keep the turret hot."
The gate rolled open. The convoy limped into the courtyard, parking next to the blackened scorch mark where we had burned the Enclave soldiers.
Fifteen people stepped out. They looked like us—gaunt, dirty, eyes hollowed out by three weeks of the apocalypse. They carried weapons, but they held them low.
Boyd walked out to meet them.
I watched the kid. He wasn't slouching anymore. He walked with a strange, gliding gait, his hands twitching at his sides as if he were typing on an invisible keyboard. His skin was pale, almost translucent in the sunlight, and his eyes—glowing a steady, electric blue—didn't blink.
He walked right up to the leader of the group, a bearded man with a shotgun.
Boyd didn't say hello. He reached out and touched the barrel of the man's shotgun.
"Mossberg 500," Boyd said. His voice was a flat, synthesized drone. "Firing pin is micro-fractured. Receiver is fouled with carbon. You have three shells in the tube. One is a dud."
The man jerked the gun away, terrified. "What the hell? Who are you?"
"Efficiency check," Boyd said. He turned to the school bus. He placed his hand on the hood. "Alternator is failing. Fuel mix is too lean. You have... twelve gallons of diesel in the reserve tank."
He looked up at me on the catwalk.
"They have resources, Architect," Boyd called out. "But their maintenance is suboptimal. I can optimize."
I climbed down the ladder. The Cruelty trait kept my expression neutral.
"I'm Jack Monroe," I said. "You're trespassing."
The bearded man stepped forward. "I'm Silas. Rank 438. These are the envoys from 460 and 422. We... we heard the broadcast. About the Top 200."
"And?"
"We did the math," Silas said. "We can't make it alone. We're too small. We're getting picked off by the Red Faction and the dead."
He gestured to the trailer.
"We have food. Canned goods. Six days' worth for our group. We have ammo. We have hands. We want to pool resources. A compact. We help you hold the walls; you help us survive the Cull."
I looked at them. Fifteen laborers. Food. Ammo.
It was a good deal. On paper.
I activated Decay Sight.
The world turned grey. Red text floated over their heads.
`[SILAS: RANK 438 LEADER.]`
`[DEATH TIMER: 4 DAYS.]`
`[CAUSE: BETRAYAL/EXECUTION.]`
I looked at the woman next to him—Rank 460 leader.
`[DEATH TIMER: 3 DAYS.]`
`[CAUSE: POISON.]`
I looked at the third leader.
`[DEATH TIMER: 4 DAYS.]`
They were all dead. The System had already written their obituaries. They were walking corpses looking for a grave.
`[ADMINISTRATOR: RESOURCE ACQUISITION OPPORTUNITY. ACCEPT ALLIANCE. ABSORB ASSETS.]`
`[ROOT: THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD. TAKE THEIR STUFF. USE THEM AS MEAT SHIELDS.]`
"We have a deal," I said.
Silas exhaled, his shoulders sagging with relief. "Thank you. You won't regret this."
"We operate on a tier system," I said. "Users eat full rations. Nulls eat half. Your people are Nulls until proven otherwise. You work the Gutter. You strip scrap. You obey orders."
"We just want to live," the woman said.
"Then get to work," I said.
The Courtyard.
14:00 Hours.
The integration was smoother than I expected. Desperation makes people compliant.
Ronnie was showing a new guy—a welder from Rank 460 named Pete—how to reinforce the barricades.
"You gotta double the bead," Ronnie explained, pointing at the seam with his good eye. "The Acid Spitters will melt right through a single pass. I lost my eye to a looter, but I'd rather lose the other one than get melted."
Pete nodded, looking at Ronnie's eyepatch with respect. "You guys held off the Red Faction? With just this?"
"We have a system," Ronnie said, a hint of pride in his voice. "And we have Travis."
Speaking of Travis.
The big man was standing by the pile of scrap rebar. He wasn't alone.
One of the new arrivals—a guy named Brick from Silas's crew—was a User. A Tank Class.
Brick was big. Six-four, maybe 280 pounds. He had the beginnings of the orange vein glow, but he looked soft compared to Travis. He hadn't taken the Quintuple Serum. He hadn't lifted a dump truck.
Travis was teaching him how to lift.
"Not with the back," Travis rumbled. He grabbed a bundle of rebar weighing four hundred pounds. He squatted, his stone-grey skin rippling. "Legs. Use the density."
He stood up, the rebar resting lightly on his shoulder.
Brick tried to copy him. He struggled, his face turning red, veins popping. He barely got it off the ground.
"Heavy," Brick gasped, dropping it.
"You eat?" Travis asked.
"Not much. Rationing."
Travis reached into his pocket. He pulled out a raw potato. It was dirty, covered in soil.
He broke it in half. He gave the bigger half to Brick.
"Eat," Travis said. "Tank needs fuel. We smash better when we're full."
Brick looked at the raw potato like it was a steak. He bit into it, crunching loudly.
"Thanks," Brick said. "I... I haven't talked to another Tank. Everyone else is scared of me."
"I know," Travis said. He looked at his own hand—the one with the missing fingernails and the grey, callused skin. "They think we're monsters."
"Are we?" Brick asked.
Travis looked at me across the courtyard. He saw me watching. The orange light in his eyes flared.
"We're the wall," Travis said. "Monsters hit the wall. They don't get past."
It was the most I'd heard him say in weeks. It was... human.
And it turned my stomach. Because I knew, looking at Brick's death timer, that Travis was making friends with a ghost.
The Command Deck.
18:00 Hours.
"They're hiding something," Boyd said.
He was plugged into the radio array. Literally. He had stripped the insulation off the headphone jack and wrapped the copper wire around his finger. His eyes were closed, vibrating behind the lids.
"What do you hear?" I asked.
"Low-band frequency," Boyd said. His voice had that flat, metallic cadence. "Encrypted. Short-range. Coming from their bus."
"Can you crack it?"
"I am the crack," Boyd said.
He twitched. The speakers crackled.
"...Sector 1 is loaded. Serum confirmed. Five vials... The Architect is injured... acid burn on leg... we wait... Day 24... strike at night..."
The transmission cut out.
I looked at Yana. She was cleaning her gun, her face grim.
"Day 24," I said. "That matches the Decay Sight. They aren't here to join us. They're here to raid us from the inside."
"Silas seemed sincere," Yana said.
"Silas is a politician," I said. "He smiles while he sharpens the knife. They think we're weak because the wall is down. They think they can wait three days, gain our trust, and then slit our throats while we sleep."
"So we kill them now," Yana said. She stood up. "I can clear the bus in thirty seconds."
"No," I said.
I looked down at the courtyard.
I saw Ronnie laughing with Pete the welder. I saw Travis sharing another potato with Brick. I saw the Nulls sharing a fire, eating the canned stew the envoys had brought.
For the first time in weeks, there was hope down there. Connection.
"If we kill them tonight," I said, "Travis and Ronnie will see it as murder. They don't know about the radio. They don't see the timers. They just see friends."
"So we let them betray us?" Boyd asked. "Inefficient."
"We let them try," I said. "We let them make the first move. And then..."
I felt the Cruelty trait pulse. It was a cold, sharp hook in my chest.
"And then we make an example."
I turned to Boyd.
"Monitor that frequency 24/7. I want to know exactly when they plan to move. And Boyd?"
"Yes, Architect?"
"Don't tell Travis. Let him have his friend for two more days."
Boyd blinked. A slow, mechanical shutter.
"Understood. Emotional buffer maintained."
I looked back at the map.
Rank 398.
We were climbing. But we were climbing on a ladder of corpses. And in two days, I was going to have to add fifteen more rungs.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 22
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) ██████░░░░ 6/10 Nodes
ALLIANCE: "THE SCAVENGER COMPACT" (Active)
New Assets: 15 Laborers, 6 Days Food, 80 Rounds Ammo
Hidden Threat: Internal Betrayal (Day 24)
Status: WAITING