The morning sun had barely risen over the wasteland, its orange hue slicing through the dusty sky like fire through paper. Aren sat cross-legged outside his tent, the synthetic tarp flapping gently in the dry breeze. The camp was already alive with the muted buzz of tired voices, clanking metal, and traders arguing over parts. Life in the survivor camp was anything but easy. The people here bartered for everything—food, water, medicine. Nothing came free.
Aren took a bite out of half a stale ration biscuit he had traded some old gears for the night before. It crumbled dryly in his mouth, and he coughed. Beside him, BP stood on its spindly legs, blinking softly with blue diode eyes. Its antenna twitched as it scanned the camp perimeter.
"Beep peep," the droid chirped.
Aren looked over at it, brushing crumbs from his lips. "Yeah, I know. It's worse today. People are hungrier."
BP cocked its small dome-like head to the side. Its screen flickered briefly, showing the text: Tracetra incoming. ETA: 7 minutes.
Aren's eyes narrowed. In the distance, a low hum began to rise, a sound all too familiar by now. He stood up, dusting off his worn-out pants and stepping out onto the gravel path leading through camp.
"Another shipment day," he muttered.
They watched as the Tracetra descended from the sky like a floating centipede of black iron. It moved slowly, guided by invisible magnetic rails embedded beneath the wasteland. The vehicle hovered about a meter off the cracked earth, humming with eerie, alien-like silence. Aren could hear the hiss of hydraulics, the clink of parts being loaded, and the voices of guards barking orders.
He hated that sound. It was the sound of life being sold to the Empire.
"Beep... peeb?" BP inquired, nudging Aren's arm with a metallic claw.
Aren sighed. "I know what you're thinking. If we had enough parts—enough scrap—we could probably buy our way into that thing. Ride it to Central World. Maybe even disappear."
BP beeped twice in rapid succession.
"No, I'm not stupid. You saw what happened to that guy last month. Tried to sneak onto it. They found his body hanging by the loading docks, stripped of every implant. Not even his teeth were left."
BP chirped something in a lower pitch, and Aren stared at the horizon where the Tracetra had landed near the camp's edge.
"Still… I think about it sometimes," he admitted. "Just getting out of here. Leaving this dust bowl behind. Taking Erina someplace safe, where she can actually have a future. Not just scavenge junk to buy old bread and fake apples."
BP flickered another short hologram. This time it showed the route of the Tracetra—at least the data BP had managed to gather from old signals. The line stopped at Central World, the Empire's capital city, a place most only knew through stories. Towers that scratched the clouds, lights brighter than suns, a place where food wasn't weighed in screws and old batteries.
Aren studied the image silently. Then he sighed. "Even if we had the parts, I don't have a map that can guide us through the territories between here and Central. No nav-chip. No ID tags. Nothing."
BP beeped again. Then a small hidden compartment popped open on its side, revealing an old, dust-covered data crystal.
Aren blinked. "Where the hell did you get that?"
"Peep beep."
He took the crystal and wiped it clean. It looked intact. Possibly usable. "This... this might be a nav-point archive," he whispered. "BP, you little junkbrain, if this works…"
BP danced in place.
Aren's excitement quickly tempered. He glanced back toward the Tracetra. The Empire guards were now inspecting all items being loaded. Even glancing in their direction too long made some of them raise their rifles.
"But even if we could bribe our way on... what if they find us? What if they scan us and see we don't belong?"
BP chirped thoughtfully, then showed a replay of earlier: the guards mostly ignored anything that looked patched-together, poorly maintained. One frame showed a group of traders escorting a pile of damaged tech with minimal inspection.
"So if we look like junk," Aren mumbled, understanding dawning, "we might just blend in."
BP nodded—or did the closest thing a droid could do to nod.
Aren crouched beside it. "Alright. We'll need more gear. Enough scrap to hide inside a shipment. Maybe a false panel or a cargo case big enough to squeeze into. We'll need breathing packs, ration tubes... and fake tags. Can you forge something close?"
"Beep peeb beep!" BP said proudly, extending a small arm with a mini-welder.
Aren chuckled. "You're damn amazing."
The boy leaned back, staring at the dusty sky as the Tracetra began its humming preparation for takeoff. The idea had grown in his mind—like a flickering spark looking for fuel.
A way out. Not today. But soon.
He stood, brushing his hands on his pants. "Let's not tell Erina until we're sure. She'd freak out."
BP whirred in agreement.
From the distance, the Tracetra rose slowly, silently gliding toward the glowing horizon, its shadow falling over the camp like a dark omen—but for Aren, it had begun to look more like a chance.
A way to escape the grip of the Bright Light Empire. A way to reclaim their future.
One ride away.
The wind howled softly outside the tent walls, carrying with it the scent of rust and dry soil. Aren stood still for a moment, fingers curled around the zipper of his duffel bag. He stared at the faded photograph on the ground—an old relic he found months ago of a family, smiling, arms linked. That kind of peace felt like fiction now.
But it was something else that froze him. A single memory, sudden and sharp.
The Empire's next collection. The next "employment transport."
It wasn't a freedom, no matter how sweetly the Bright Light Empire's envoys tried to spin it. It was slavery. Entertainment work in the Central World, where the rich and powerful paid to indulge. And the targets?
Young girls.
Aren's chest tightened. The realization came like a punch to the gut—Erina could be taken. She was the right age, and her pale skin and bright red hair made her stand out like a beacon. He couldn't let that happen.
He zipped the bag shut and turned on his heel.
"I have to move faster," he whispered.
BP let out a concerned beep from the corner. The small dome-shaped droid tilted slightly, sensing the urgency in Aren's posture.
He pushed open the tent flap. Outside, the sun had dipped low, casting everything in hues of amber and rust. Erina was crouched by the fire pit, poking at the embers with a stick. She looked up at him.
"You're leaving again?" she asked. "So soon?"
"I have to," Aren said, trying to keep his tone even. "The market needs more relics. I need to stock up before the next caravan leaves."
Erina squinted at his bag. "What vehicle are you using?"
Aren paused.
The Cytra...
His mind flashed back to the hills east of camp. The last time he scavenged that far, he ran into something no one believed still existed. A centipede, not the usual ones, but one of the mutated giants from early after the Collapse—six meters long, armored like a tank, its clicking mandibles echoing through the canyon. His Cytra—a battered hoverbike with rusted fins and exposed engine wires—hadn't stood a chance. He barely got away with his life.
He never told Erina about that.
"I... left it," he lied. "It's out of fuel."
Erina frowned, but said nothing.
Aren gave her a brief nod, turned to BP, and gestured. "Let's go."
---
They moved under the cover of shadows, hugging the outer perimeter of the camp. The slums of the survivor zone stretched far and wide—tents patched with tarps, metallic shanties groaning under wind, smoke from fires coiling into the darkening sky.
Kamaro's guards loitered near the inner wall—a circle of makeshift barricades and reinforced shipping crates that protected the storage and captured loot. Including what he was after.
A stolen Cytra.
He saw it yesterday—a sleek, bandit-modified hoverbike parked just behind the makeshift compound gate. It was painted matte black with neon-blue edges, and the engine purr he heard when it roared through town was nothing short of beautiful. That thing could outrun any patrol.
And now, he was going to take it.
"BP," he whispered. "Distraction protocol. North post."
BP chirped and rolled away without hesitation, scooting low under debris and wires.
Aren crouched behind a broken fence. Two guards stood by the wall, one leaning lazily on a polearm rifle, the other busy munching on a hard biscuit. They were too busy talking about some Empire ration trade to notice BP sneaking up.
Then—
CLANG!
A metal drum rolled out from behind a supply crate and hit the wall with a loud rattle.
"The hell?" one of the guards snapped, raising his rifle.
"Go check it," the other muttered.
"Nah, your turn."
"Just go!"
The first guard swore under his breath and moved off toward the noise.
Aren didn't wait.
He sprinted across the alley, ducking low, and reached the side wall of the compound. One hand gripped the edge of a shipping container stacked against the wall. He scaled it quickly, climbing silently using rusted bars and handholds. His fingers stung, but adrenaline pushed him forward.
BP had made another noise—a deliberate spark pop from its mini-welder. The second guard finally moved to investigate.
Aren reached the top.
Below him, in the heart of the guarded zone, the Cytra sat like a jewel among scrap. It gleamed faintly in the moonlight, humming with residual energy.
"No alarms. No chains. Lucky me," he whispered.
He jumped down silently and dashed to the vehicle. His hands worked quickly, rewiring the ignition panel. BP rejoined him, plugging in its small port connector.
"Override code 9-Delta," Aren whispered.
BP beeped and sparks flickered. The hoverbike lit up.
"Got it," Aren grinned.
Suddenly, a loud shout echoed behind him.
"Hey! What the hell?!"
The guard had returned just in time to see Aren mounting the bike.
"Stop! That's Kamaro's!"
"Too late," Aren muttered.
With a roar, the Cytra's engine ignited, lifting the vehicle a meter off the ground in a pulse of blue light. BP magnetized onto the rear rack just as Aren slammed the throttle.
The hoverbike shot forward, tearing through crates and debris. Guards scattered, shouting. One dove aside as the Cytra smashed through a support pillar, collapsing a whole shack.
Aren wasn't aiming for the gate.
He aimed up.
The camp's outer wall, patched together with scavenged metal and plastic sheets, towered before him.
"Hold on!" he yelled.
BP chirped in alarm.
Aren tilted the front of the Cytra and pushed it to maximum thrust. The hoverbike blasted up the incline of a crumbled old tower beam, and launched into the air.
The world tilted.
For a second, they were airborne—above the wall, above the camp, with the stars spinning around them and the shouts of confused guards below.
Then—
CRASH!
They slammed through the upper scaffolding of the wall, busting through panels and loose reinforcements. Sparks rained around them. One of the guards screamed, "Aren, you little—!"
The hoverbike spiraled down the slope on the other side. Dirt kicked up, and they nearly lost balance—but Aren corrected the pitch just in time and gunned it across the empty hills.
---
The city shrank behind him. The glow of the camp faded to a few blinking lights.
Only the quiet of night remained.
BP beeped once, softly.
Aren didn't reply immediately.
His hands gripped the handlebars tighter. His jaw clenched.
Finally, he said, voice low but hard, "The Empire's 'employment' caravan comes in three weeks."
The Cytra's engine thrummed beneath him, steady and strong.
"I'm not going to let them take her. I don't care what it costs. We leave before then."
He glanced at the stars above—distant, cold, yet full of possibility.
"We have one chance, BP. One. Let's make it count."