Day 22.
National Guard Armory (Site B).
8 Miles North of Sector 1.
14:00 Hours.
The armory looked like a concrete bunker designed to survive the apocalypse. It had failed.
The heavy steel doors were buckled inward, probably from a tank shell or a Tier 3 impact in the first week. The perimeter fence was flattened. But the interior... my Decay Sight showed the interior was cold.
`[LOCATION: ABANDONED ARMORY.]`
`[LOOT DENSITY: HIGH.]`
`[THREAT: ENVIRONMENTAL (TRAPS).]`
"It's quiet," Marcus whispered.
Marcus was one of the envoys from Silas's group (Rank 438). He was a scrawny guy in a denim jacket who looked at me like I was a bomb waiting to go off. He was right.
"Quiet means dead," I said. "Or waiting. Keep your eyes up."
I signaled the team. Travis took point, his massive frame blocking the sunlight. He was carrying a riot shield we'd scavenged, looking like a dystopian centurion. Yana faded into the shadows on the left flank. Marcus and two other Coalition Nulls trailed behind, hungry for the loot I had promised them.
"Boyd," I tapped my headset. "Scanners?"
"Thermal is clear," Boyd's voice crackled. It sounded metallic, stripped of inflection. "Magnetic resonance shows heavy ferrous deposits in the lower vault. Guns. Big ones."
"We're going in," I said.
We stepped through the breached doors. The air inside was stale, smelling of gun oil, dry rot, and old urine. The emergency lights were dead, but the shafts of light cutting through the ceiling cracks illuminated racks of empty weapon lockers.
Looted. Picked clean.
"There's nothing here," Marcus complained, kicking an empty ammo can. "You said there was gear, Monroe."
"I said there was a vault," I corrected.
I walked to the rear of the facility. There, behind a heavy cage, was the officer's requisition room. The door was sealed. Electronic keypad.
"Boyd," I said. "I'm holding the radio to the lock."
" transmitting decryption pulse," Boyd droned. "Three. Two. One."
BEEP-CLICK.
The mag-lock disengaged.
I pushed the door open.
Jackpot.
It wasn't fully stocked, but it wasn't empty.
Two crates of MREs (Menu C: Beef Ravioli).
Five hundred rounds of 5.56mm green-tip.
Two M4 carbines with optics.
And leaning against the back wall, a long, black hard case.
I walked past the MREs. I ignored the carbines. I went for the case.
I popped the latches.
Inside, resting in cut foam, was a Barrett M82A1. The Light Fifty. An anti-materiel sniper rifle that could punch a hole through an engine block from a mile away.
"Hello, beautiful," I whispered.
`[WEAPON ACQUIRED: BARRETT .50 CAL.]`
`[DAMAGE: EXTREME.]`
`[PURPOSE: BOSS KILLER.]`
"Vance's retirement gift," I muttered, running my hand over the cold steel barrel.
"Food!" Marcus shouted. He and the other Nulls shoved past me, tearing into the MRE crates. "Holy shit, actual ravioli!"
"Don't touch it yet," I ordered. "We clear the room first."
"It's clear!" Marcus argued, grabbing a pouch. "Look, there's nothing—"
He stepped forward. His boot snagged a thin, translucent fishing line strung across the floor at ankle height.
CLICK.
The sound was small. The consequence was not.
"Down!" I screamed.
I grabbed Yana and threw her behind a steel desk.
Travis didn't dive. He turned, planting his riot shield into the ground, bracing his shoulder against it.
BOOM.
The Claymore mine rigged to the MRE crate detonated.
It wasn't a firecracker. It was seven hundred steel ball bearings traveling at supersonic speed, propelled by a pound of C4.
The explosion turned the small room into a blender.
Travis's shield rang like a church bell—GONG—as it absorbed the brunt of the blast. The shockwave knocked the wind out of me. Dust and pulverized concrete filled the air.
Then came the screaming.
Marcus was on the floor. He was still holding the MRE pouch.
But his legs were gone.
The Claymore had severed them just below the knees. His shins were red ruin, the bones shattered, blood pumping onto the concrete in rhythmic spurts.
"My legs!" Marcus shrieked, staring at the stumps. "Oh god, my legs!"
The other two Nulls were down, peppered with shrapnel, groaning.
"Ambush!" Yana hissed, rising from cover with her knife drawn.
"Not an ambush," I coughed, waving away the smoke. "A trap. Left by whoever was here last."
I checked Travis. He was standing, shaking his head. The riot shield was shredded, looking like Swiss cheese, but his skin—his dense, Tank-class hide—was barely scratched.
"Loud," Travis grunted. He spat blood. "Ears ringing."
"Movement!" Boyd's voice cut through the static. "Acoustic spike. You rang the dinner bell, Jack. Swarm inbound. Twelve o'clock."
I looked toward the breached entrance.
Shadows were moving in the sunlight. Fast, twitchy shadows.
Runners.
Tier 2. Drawn by the explosion.
"Extraction!" I yelled. "Grab the ammo! Grab the guns! Leave the food!"
"Help me!" Marcus screamed. He reached a bloody hand toward me. "Jack! Help me!"
I looked at him.
`[MARCUS: NULL.]`
`[INJURY: TRAUMATIC AMPUTATION.]`
`[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0%.]`
`[TIME TO DEATH: 90 SECONDS.]`
He was dead weight. Literally. If we carried him, we'd be slow. If we were slow, the Runners would eat us.
"I can't," I said.
I grabbed the Barrett case and an ammo can.
"I'm sorry, Marcus."
"You bastard!" he wailed. "Don't leave me!"
"Incoming!" Yana shouted.
The first Runner hit the doorway. It was a woman in a torn jogging suit, her jaw unhinged, sprinting on all fours.
Yana met her. She Shadow Stepped—a blur of motion—and appeared behind the Runner. Her knife flashed. The Runner's head rolled across the floor.
But there were more. Six. Ten. Twelve.
"Travis! Clear a path!"
Travis roared. He dropped the ruined shield. He grabbed the nearest Runner by the neck and the thigh. He ripped it in half.
RIIIIP.
It sounded like wet canvas tearing. He threw the pieces at the pack.
"Go!" I shouted.
We sprinted for the exit.
I turned back once.
Marcus was trying to crawl. A Runner landed on his back. It didn't bite him immediately. It looked at me. It hissed.
Then three more landed on him.
Marcus's screams were cut short by the sound of wet tearing.
We hit the sunlight. The truck was fifty yards away.
A pack of Runners blocked the path. Five of them, crouching on the hoods of the wrecked cars, waiting.
I dropped the Barrett case. I unslung the scavenged M4.
"Cover me," I said.
I triggered Regression Echo.
[ECHO ACTIVE: DAY 30 STATS.]
[DURATION: 30 SECONDS.]
The world turned grey. The sound of the wind dropped an octave. The Runners moved like they were underwater.
I raised the rifle.
My heart rate dropped to 40. My hands, usually shaking from the sickness, became rock steady.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Three shots. Three heads exploded in slow motion. Black blood hung in the air like oil droplets.
I adjusted aim.
Pop. Pop.
Two more.
I was moving through the world like a ghost from the future. I vaulted a jersey barrier, reloading mid-air, landing in a roll that brought me up next to the truck door.
[ECHO ENDED.]
The backlash hit me.
I collapsed against the truck, vomiting bile. My vision fractured. For a second, I saw Travis dead on the ground, his throat torn out. I saw Yana screaming.
Timeline ghosts.
"Jack!" Yana grabbed my vest and hauled me up. "Get in!"
I scrambled into the driver's seat. Travis threw the loot into the bed and vaulted in. Yana rode shotgun.
I gunned the engine. The truck peeled out, tires spinning in the gravel, leaving the armory and the screaming Nulls behind.
Highway 40.
15:30 Hours.
The drive back was silent.
My hands were shaking so bad I could barely hold the wheel. The System Sickness was advancing. The veins in my wrists looked like they were filled with molten gold.
"We left him," Yana said. She was wiping black blood off her knife. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated. She was breathing hard, riding the high of the slaughter. "We just left him."
"He was dead," I said. "The explosion took his legs."
"We could have tourniqueted," Yana said. "We could have tried."
"And then what?" I snapped. "Carried a double amputee through a Runner swarm? Wasted medical supplies on a man who can't work? He was a liability, Yana. Now he's a distraction for the zombies."
Yana stared at me. "You're getting really good at that math, Jack."
"It's the only math that matters."
I looked in the rearview mirror.
Travis was sitting in the bed, leaning against the cab. He was staring at his hands.
I opened the slider window.
"You okay, big man?"
Travis looked at me. His eyes were glowing a dull, sick orange. He spat over the side of the truck.
"Boss," he rumbled. "My spit."
"What about it?"
"Tastes like pennies," Travis said. "Like sucking on a battery. And my side hurts. Like... deep inside."
My stomach dropped.
Organ failure.
The Tank Class demanded calories. If it didn't get them from food, it took them from the body. It was cannibalizing his kidneys and liver to fuel the muscle density.
`[TRAVIS: SYSTEM SICKNESS STAGE 2.]`
`[WARNING: ORGAN SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.]`
"We'll get you food," I said. "We got MREs. You eat all of them. Understand? All of them."
"Okay, Boss," Travis said. He closed his eyes.
I looked at the passenger seat. At the Barrett .50 cal case resting between Yana's feet.
We had the gun. We had the ammo. We had the means to kill Reaper Vance.
But the cost was climbing.
Marcus was dead. Travis was dying by inches. Yana was turning into a killer who enjoyed it too much.
And me?
I looked at my reflection in the side mirror. My eyes looked like silver coins—cold, dead, reflecting the world without feeling it.
`[CRUELTY TRAIT: REINFORCED.]`
`[RANKING UPDATE: 392.]`
"One step closer," I whispered.
"To what?" Yana asked.
"To the end," I said.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 22
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) ██████░░░░ 6/10 Nodes
LOOT: Barrett .50cal, 500 Rounds 5.56mm, 40 MREs
CASUALTIES: Marcus (Coalition Null), +2 Coalition injured
STATUS: CRITICAL (Travis Organ Failure)
NEXT EVENT: The Betrayal / Poison