The sky hadn't been blue in seventeen years.
Kael Thorne crouched atop the skeletal remains of what was once the Hyderabad Financial Tower, his prosthetic left arm clicking softly as he adjusted his scope. Below, in the maze of collapsed concrete and rusted rebar, a convoy of scavengers picked through the bones of the old world. They moved like rats—quick, nervous, always watching the shadows.
Smart of them.
The radiation meter on his wrist ticked lazily. 3.7 roentgens. Safe enough for another hour, maybe two if he didn't mind pissing blood for a week. Time was always the enemy here. Time, and other humans.
"Seven adults, three children," he murmured into the comm unit grafted to his throat. The voice that emerged was mechanical, emotionless—his vocal cords had been among the many prices paid for survival. "Standard loadout. Makeshift armor. Leader has a pre-war rifle."
"Children?" The response crackled through static. Meera's voice, tinged with that weakness she called conscience.
"Three."
"Then we wait. Let them pass."
Kael's finger rested on the trigger of his cobbled-together railgun. One squeeze. The convoy leader's head would paint the rubble red. The others would scatter. His team would sweep in, take everything worth taking. Three minutes of violence for three weeks of supplies.
The math was simple. The math was always simple.
"No."
"Kael—"
He cut the connection.
Through the scope, he watched one of the children—a girl, maybe eight, maybe younger. Hard to tell anymore. Malnutrition aged them wrong. She clutched a doll made from wire and cloth, its button eyes hanging by threads. When the convoy paused to rest, she offered half her water ration to the doll first, pretending it could drink.
His prosthetic arm twitched. Memory fragments: another girl, another doll, another time when he'd had a heart instead of scar tissue.
But that was before. Before the abandonment. Before the ones who called themselves humanity's saviors packed their bags, fired up their ships, and left ninety percent of the species to rot on a dying world.
"They left us to die," he'd carved into his first victim's chest. "So we learned to live."
The convoy was moving again. Good. Let them have their three more hours of hope.
Kael shifted position, his movements liquid despite the cybernetic modifications. The arm wasn't the only thing that made him less than human anymore. Or more than human, depending on perspective. The alien parasites that infested the ruins had their uses, if you were desperate enough. If you were angry enough.
If you were already dead inside.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. Northeast, two clicks. His enhanced vision zoomed, pupils dilating beyond human limits. Another group. This one moved differently—professional, coordinated. Raiders from the Crimson Veins faction, judging by the ritual scars on their exposed skin.
They were tracking the convoy.
Kael smiled. It wasn't a pleasant expression.
The math changed. Crimson Veins had been encroaching on his territory for months. They'd killed three of his scouts last week. Flayed them alive, actually, then broadcast their screams on all frequencies as a warning.
He hadn't responded. Yet.
Through the scope, he counted. Twelve raiders. Better armed than the scavengers, but cocky. They hadn't noticed him. They were focused on their prey, salivating over easy meat.
His comm unit buzzed. Different frequency. Emergency band.
"Shadow King, this is Station Seven. We've got movement. Big movement. The readers are going crazy."
The readers. Alien tech they'd salvaged from the war, repurposed to detect... things. Things that shouldn't exist. Things the evacuation fleet had sworn were all dead.
"Specify."
"Eastern wastes. Energy signature matches... fuck, it matches nothing. It's big. It's moving toward the city."
"ETA?"
"Six hours at current speed. Maybe less."
Six hours. The convoy would be in the raiders' killing ground in twenty minutes. Whatever was coming from the east would arrive to find either corpses or survivors. Neither option benefited him.
Unless...
Kael's mind worked through possibilities, calculating angles like a predator studying prey trails. The Crimson Veins didn't know about the approaching anomaly. The convoy certainly didn't. Information asymmetry—the only currency that mattered in the wasteland.
He could warn the convoy, turn them north, directly into his territory. They'd owe him. Gratitude was useful.
He could let the raiders attack, then ambush the winners. Resources and revenge, efficiently packaged.
Or...
His prosthetic fingers danced across the rifle's control panel, switching ammunition types. The weapon hummed, charging.
Or he could do what he did best. What the abandonment had taught him. What seventeen years of hell had carved into his bones.
Survive. Adapt. Ensure others paid the price.
"Station Seven, maintain monitoring. Do not broadcast warnings."
"Understood. What about—"
"Nothing changes. Kael out."
He shifted the rifle, aiming not at the convoy or the raiders, but at a specific point in the ruins. A load-bearing wall, already weakened by time and war. One shot would bring down three buildings, creating a barrier that would force both groups into a narrow canyon—directly toward whatever was approaching from the east.
The math was beautiful in its cruelty. Both groups would survive the initial collapse. They'd help each other, maybe even unite against the common threat. They'd make it to the canyon just as the anomaly arrived. Whatever happened then would weaken all parties involved.
And Kael would watch. Study. Learn. Then pick the bones clean.
His finger tightened on the trigger. In his mind, unbidden, the image of the girl with the doll flickered.
Weakness, he told himself. Sentiment is death.
But his finger didn't move.
Somewhere in the ruins, a child pretended her doll could drink water. Somewhere above, in their shining new world, the ones who'd abandoned them pretended they were heroes. Somewhere in the past, a different Kael had believed in things like mercy and hope.
The trigger clicked.
The wall exploded in a cloud of concrete dust and screams.
And in the silence that followed, as two groups of humans scrambled to understand what had happened, as death approached from the east in a form none of them could imagine, Kael Thorne began to climb down from his perch.
The math was simple. The math was always simple.
But sometimes, just sometimes, he added variables that made no sense. A girl. A doll. A memory of when the sky was blue.
It would probably get him killed one day.
Today wasn't that day.
The radiation meter ticked up. 4.1 roentgens. Time to move.
Behind him, the first screams began as the convoy and raiders discovered they were trapped together. Ahead of him, his team waited in the shadows, ready to play their part in whatever came next.
And in the distance, something that shouldn't exist moved closer to the corpse of Hyderabad, bringing with it answers to questions humanity had been too afraid to ask.
The sky hadn't been blue in seventeen years.
But today, for just a moment, it flickered red.