The sun barely touched the sky anymore. What light did break through the gray was pale, filtered through the static haze left behind by dead satellites and burned-out towers.
The group walked single file down an overgrown highway, fractured concrete giving way to dirt and weeds. Power lines sagged overhead like old spiderwebs. In the distance, the silhouette of their encampment—a gutted, reinforced freight warehouse—waited behind a rusted fence.
It had been a long day.
Robert kicked a can down the road. "So… can we talk about how I definitely saved everyone back there?"
"You stabbed one leg on a thing with six legs," said Sage. "Congratulations. Truly a hero."
Robert turned to walk backward, arms wide. "Oh, I'm sorry. Should I have performed a monologue while stabbing it?"
Marianna smirked. "You'd need brain cells for that."
Michael snorted. Robert shot her a playful glare. "Was that a shot at me or Sage?"
"Whoever gets offended first," she said sweetly.
"I'm offended," Jadrien shouted from the back.
"Not you," the group replied in tired unison.
Marianna fell in step beside Michael, eyes glinting with amusement. "You know, for someone who acts like a war machine, you sure got knocked on your ass back there."
Michael rolled his shoulder. "It weighed a ton. And you're welcome, by the way."
"I mean, Adam distracted it more than you did—"
Adam, walking ahead with his headphones around his neck, looked up. "Wait, what did I do?"
"Nothing important," Marianna chirped.
Michael scowled. "What's your problem today?"
"Oh, today I have a problem?" she teased. "So yesterday I was delightful?"
"You were irritating yesterday too," muttered Robert.
"Oh, there it is," Marianna said with a grin. "See? I knew someone would crack first."
Marie, who had been walking near the center of the group with her eyes half-lidded in practiced tolerance, finally stopped and turned.
"That's enough," she said, calm but firm.
Everyone actually paused. When Marie used that voice, even the TechRot would've hesitated.
"We're low on sleep, low on supplies, and walking back into a base that still smells like boiled rat. If we're going to survive another week without one of you dying, I'd prefer we keep the drama down to one person per day." She turned to Marianna with a raised brow. "You already hit your limit."
Marianna held her hands up, still smirking. "Fine, fine. No more fun."
"You can have fun," Marie said, resuming her pace. "Just try it without playing puppet master with everyone's egos."
Azariah trotted up beside her, whispering, "She's really good at it though."
"I heard that," Marianna called over her shoulder.
"Good," Azariah called back.
Sage snuck something from Jadrien's belt pouch while he wasn't looking and casually peeled open a protein bar. "This is my tax for emotional stress," she mumbled.
"Hey!" Jadrien turned and spotted her mid-bite. "That was mine!"
"And now it's mine." She didn't even blink.
Robert leaned over to Adam. "Remind me why we don't just leave her behind."
"She can get into anything, steal from anyone, and hasn't been caught once," Adam said without looking up from the copper wire he was fidgeting with. "We need her."
Robert grunted. "Still."
The group finally reached the outer fence. Marianna was the first to scale it, sniper slung across her back like a second spine. The rest followed, one by one, slipping back into the bones of their refuge — steel, silence, and the occasional flicker of distant lights on the horizon.
Inside the base, the air was thick with oil and dust. It wasn't home. But it was shelter.
And shelter meant survival.