Day 28.
The Command Deck.
Sauget, Illinois.
18:00 Hours.
The Enclave had left more than just bodies. They had left chemistry.
I stood at the workbench, looking at the metal case Helen had stripped off the dead Enclave medic during the cleanup. Inside, nestled in shock-absorbent foam, were twelve syringes filled with a cloudy, grey liquid.
"What is it?" Travis asked. He was leaning against the wall, cradling his fused, club-like arm. His skin was still grey and cracked, but the burns on his shoulder were scabbing over with thick, callused tissue.
"Combat stims," Helen said. She held a vial up to the light, her hand shaking slightly. "Adrenaline, synthetic cortisol, and a heavy dose of military-grade amphetamines. The Enclave soldiers were jacked on this stuff. That's why they didn't scream when they burned. It turns off the pain receptors."
"Is it a Serum?" Paige asked. She was scrubbing her hands, a nervous tick she had developed since the mutiny. "Will it... change us?"
"No," I said. "Serums rewrite your DNA. They make you a User. This..." I picked up a syringe. The needle was long, thick, designed to punch through fatigues. "This just overclocks your muscles for an hour. You'll be stronger, faster, and you won't feel fear. But you won't heal."
I looked at the Nulls—Ronnie, Paige, and the few others who had survived the gas. They looked broken. They were waiting to die.
"It won't make you a Tank," I said. "But it will give you a fighting chance against a Howler."
"And afterwards?" Ronnie asked, touching the bandage over his missing eye.
"Afterwards," I said, "you crash. Your body shuts down for twenty-four hours. You'll wish you were dead. But you'll be alive."
I took the case.
"This is the Null Boost," I said. "We keep these for the breach. If the Zealots get inside... you inject. You fight. You survive."
I walked over to Ronnie.
`[RONNIE: LOYALTY 75%.]`
`[STATUS: WAVERING.]`
He needed a push. He needed to know he wasn't just meat for the grinder.
"Ronnie," I said. "Take one."
He hesitated. "Me?"
"You held the line at the wall," I said. "You lost an eye for this place. I trust you with the trigger."
I handed him the grey syringe.
Ronnie took it. He looked at it like it was a holy relic.
"Thanks, Jack," he whispered. He clipped it to his belt next to his welding torch.
`[RONNIE: LOYALTY 75% -> 79%.]`
Almost there.
"Get ready," I told the room. "The crusade is coming."
The South Gate.
18:30 Hours.
"Movement," Yana called from the roof. Her voice was tight. "Single target. Walking up the road."
I grabbed the Barrett M82 and looked through the scope. I had four rounds left.
It wasn't an army. It was one man.
He was wearing a white robe that dragged in the mud, stained with violet slime and black bile. He was unarmed. His hands were raised, palms open, fingers spread wide.
He walked with a serene, gliding gait, stepping over the charred remains of the Enclave soldiers as if they were flowers in a garden.
Prophet Eclipse.
The leader of The Reborn. Rank 42.
He stopped fifty yards from the gate. He smiled. His teeth were filed into points, and his gums were stained black from the corruption he willingly injected.
"Permission to enter!" his voice called out. It wasn't amplified by a megaphone, but it carried perfectly, resonating in my skull like a tuning fork. Tier 3 Sonic Projection.
"He's alone," Travis grunted, standing beside me at the gate. His orange eyes flared. "I can squash him."
"He wants to talk," I said. "Open the gate."
"Jack?" Helen hissed from the shadows. "He's a Chaos User. He's dangerous."
"If he wanted to fight, he'd have brought the horde," I said. "Open it. Let's hear the sales pitch."
Travis hauled the chain. The gate rattled open, metal screaming on metal.
Eclipse walked in.
Up close, he was hideous. His skin was translucent, shifting with a violet bioluminescence. A third eye—a functional, blinking mutation with a vertical slit pupil—was embedded in the center of his forehead. It looked around independently of his other two.
He stopped in the center of the kill box. He looked at the Flamethrower Turret, sitting cold and empty. He smiled.
"Crude," Eclipse said. "But effective. Fire cleanses. I respect the purity of it."
He turned to me.
"Greetings, Architect. I come with an offer."
"State it," I said, my hand resting on the Fang .45.
"Day 30 approaches," Eclipse said. "You are Rank 184. I am Rank 42. Together... we could be Top 10."
He gestured to the east, toward the city skyline where the fires of his zealots were burning.
"Join us, Jack. Merge your territory with mine. Bring your Serum. Bring your Tank."
He looked at Travis. He really looked at him.
Eclipse walked over to Travis. Travis didn't flinch, though his orange veins pulsed with aggression. The Tank towered over the Prophet, a wall of grey muscle and scar tissue.
Eclipse reached out a long, six-fingered hand and touched Travis's fused, club-like arm. The arm I had saved with the serum.
"Oh, you poor thing," Eclipse whispered. "Look at you. A broken toy."
Travis stiffened. A low growl started in his chest.
"You were trying to ascend," Eclipse crooned, stroking the misshapen bone. "But your Architect... he stunted you. He healed you with Human logic. This arm? It's a deformity. A mistake. It limits your potential."
Eclipse looked at me, his three eyes narrowing.
"I can fix him," Eclipse said. "I have the Apotheosis Serum. I can unlock his true form. He could be a Titan. Not this... cobbled-together golem you've made him into."
The insult hung in the air.
Travis looked at his arm. The arm that had saved us. The arm I had spent a Quintuple Serum to save when everyone else said to let him die or amputate.
I stepped forward.
I didn't walk around Eclipse. I walked into his space. I shoved past his outstretched hand.
I jammed the barrel of the Fang .45 into the center of Eclipse's chest, right over his heart.
"Step back," I said.
Eclipse smiled, unfazed by the gun. "He is a tool to you, isn't he? A broken hammer you refuse to throw away."
"He isn't broken," I said.
My voice was cold. It was the Cruelty trait speaking, but for the first time, the cruelty wasn't directed at my crew. It was directed at the thing threatening them.
"He's evolved," I said. "He held the line against an army. He crushed a Fuser with his bare hands while you were playing dress-up in a stadium."
I cocked the hammer of the gun. Click.
"And he's worth ten of you."
Travis looked at me. His orange eyes flared bright, burning away the doubt. He stood straighter, his massive frame expanding.
"You heard the Boss," Travis rumbled. His voice was deep, tectonic. "Step back."
Eclipse laughed. It was a wet, gurgling sound, like bubbles rising in a swamp.
"Loyalty," Eclipse said. "How quaint. But loyalty doesn't stop the clock, Architect."
He stepped back, hands raised.
"You refuse my offer?"
"I refuse your religion," I said.
"Then you choose extinction," Eclipse said. "My flock is hungry. And we are coming."
He turned to leave.
"Wait," I said.
Eclipse turned back. "Yes? Changing your mind?"
"No," I said. "You forgot something."
I pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The bullet hit Eclipse dead center in the chest. It punched a hole the size of a fist through his torso. Violet light and black ichor sprayed out the back, painting the mud.
Eclipse stumbled. He looked down at the hole in his chest. You could see the daylight through it.
Then, the flesh rippled.
Black tendrils shot out from the edges of the wound. They wove together like knitting needles, pulling the tissue back into place. The bone snapped shut. The skin sealed.
Tier 3 Regeneration.
In three seconds, the wound was gone. Only a tear in his robe remained.
He looked up at me. He wasn't dead. He was amused.
"See you on Day 30, Jack," Eclipse whispered.
He turned and walked out the gate.
I watched him go. My hand was steady, but my mind was racing. He hadn't even flinched.
"He didn't die," Helen whispered from the doorway. She looked terrified.
"No," I said. "Chaos Users don't die easy. You have to destroy the brain or burn them to ash."
I turned to the crew. I looked at the grey syringes clipped to their belts. I looked at Travis, who was flexing his club-arm with a new sense of pride.
"Get ready," I said. "The crusade is coming."
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 28
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) ████████░░ 8/10 Nodes
NEW ASSET: NULL STIM (The Grey Vial)
STATUS: WAR (Zealots)
TRAVIS LOYALTY: ABSOLUTE (100%)
Next Event: The Calm / Day 29