The desert air was freezing.
Inside the luxury rover, the climate control hummed a steady 72 degrees.
Marcus sat in the passenger seat. He stared at his hands. They were caked in mud and dried blood—Vane's blood.
His heart was hammering against his ribs. The adrenaline crash was hitting him hard. His fingers trembled.
"Breathe," he whispered to himself.
[HEART RATE: 140 BPM.]
The text appeared in his vision. But it wasn't the jagged red font of the Board's UI. It was soft, crisp Gold.
[SUGGESTION: INHALE FOR 4 SECONDS. HOLD. EXHALE.]
"I'm trying, JARVIS," Marcus muttered.
Marcia was driving. Her knuckles were white on the leather steering wheel. She was staring at the rearview mirror, watching the glow on the horizon.
Antioch was gone. A mountain had been erased from the map.
"We nuked it," she said, her voice hollow. "We actually nuked it."
"We vented it," Galen corrected from the back seat. He was hugging the black server drive like a teddy bear. "If we had nuked it, the shockwave would have flipped this car like a coin."
"Semantics," Lucilla said. She was tapping furiously on the rover's dashboard console. "We just destroyed a Level 10 Asset. Vane's stock portfolio is plummeting as we speak."
"Good," Marcus said. He took a deep breath. 1... 2... 3... 4.
The rover sped over the dunes. Its suspension was incredible. They were doing eighty miles an hour over rough sand, and it felt like floating.
"Where are they?" Marcia asked. "The convoy?"
"Five miles North," Marcus said. "Wadi Kelt. That was the rally point."
"If they waited," Marcia said grimly. "They saw the explosion. They probably think we're vapor."
"Decimus won't leave," Marcus said. "He's stubborn."
They crested a massive dune.
Below, in the shadow of a dried riverbed, sat the trucks.
Ten rusted, military transports circled up in a defensive laager. No lights. Just dark shapes huddled in the sand.
"They're there," Marcus said.
Marcia flashed the high beams. Three times.
Down in the wadi, a single red flare popped.
"They waited," Marcia breathed. The tension in her shoulders finally snapped. She slumped back in the seat.
She drove the rover down the slope. It slid gracefully through the sand, coming to a halt near the lead truck.
The refugees poured out of the vehicles.
They looked terrified. They were covered in dust, eyes wide, watching the alien luxury car that had just appeared out of the night.
Marcus opened the door.
He stepped out into the cold air.
Silence fell over the camp.
He looked like a wreck. His armor was scarred from the Praetorian's pike. His face was smeared with oil and mud. He limped slightly.
But he was alive.
"Caesar!" Decimus shouted.
The centurion ran forward. He fell to his knees in the sand. He grabbed Marcus's hand.
"We saw the fire," Decimus wept. "We thought the gods had taken you."
"Not yet," Marcus said, pulling him up. "The gods tried. We broke their toy."
A cheer erupted from the crowd. It wasn't polite. It was primal. A roar of relief and awe.
They touched his armor. They patted the rover. They needed to know it was real.
"Back!" Marcia ordered, stepping out with her shotgun. "Give him air!"
The crowd parted.
Marcus walked to the heavy transport truck at the rear of the circle.
The tailgate was down.
Narcissus lay on a pallet.
The giant cyborg was still. The portable battery pack next to him was beeping—a low battery warning.
His chest plate was open. The interface socket was a mess of blackened wires.
"He hasn't moved," a medic whispered. "His core is cold."
Marcus climbed into the truck bed.
"Galen," Marcus said. "Hook him up."
Galen climbed up. He looked at the rover. Then he looked at Narcissus.
"The rover has a fusion generator," Galen said. "Infinite charge. We can jump him."
"Do it."
They ran a thick cable from the rover's charging port to Narcissus's chest.
"JARVIS," Marcus thought. "Can you talk to him?"
[INITIATING WIRELESS HANDSHAKE...]
[TARGET: SENTINEL OS - VERSION 2.0 (CORRUPTED)]
[DIAGNOSIS: SOFTWARE CONFLICT. THE BOARD'S CODE IS FIGHTING HIS BRAIN.]
"Fix it," Marcus said. "Delete the Board."
[WITH PLEASURE.]
Galen threw the switch on the cable.
Power surged.
Narcissus arched his back. The servos in his arms whined.
The blue light in his chest flickered. It turned violet. Then white.
Then, it settled.
Gold.
A warm, steady golden glow emanated from the Fusion Core.
Narcissus opened his eyes.
The blinding white searchlights were gone. His eyes were soft blue again. Human eyes in a metal skull.
He sat up. The movement was smooth. No robotic jerking. No grinding gears.
He looked at his hands. He flexed his metal fingers.
"The noise," Narcissus whispered. His voice was deep, rumbling like a cello. "It stopped."
"What noise?" Marcus asked.
"The screaming," Narcissus said. "The commands. Kill. Obey. Asset. It's gone."
He looked at Marcus.
"Is this... death?"
"No, brother," Marcus said, grinning. "It's an upgrade."
[PATCH INSTALLED: FREE WILL v1.0]
JARVIS flashed a thumbs-up icon in Marcus's vision.
Narcissus stood up. He towered over the truck bed. He looked at the rover.
"Shiny," he grunted.
Laughter rippled through the gathered refugees.
Marcia climbed up onto the truck. She looked at the group.
"Alright," she barked. "Show's over. Asset check. What do we have?"
Lucilla pulled out her datapad.
"We have two hundred souls," she said. "Ten trucks. Half a tank of fuel each."
"Food?" Marcia asked.
"Three days of rations," Decimus said. "If we ration strictly."
"Water?"
"Four days. The desalination filters broke on the Neptune."
"Ammo?"
"Low," Marcia said, checking her bandolier. "I have six shells left. The legionaries have maybe twenty rounds per rifle."
Silence.
They were alive. But they were stranded in a desert, hundreds of miles from civilization, surrounded by an enemy army that—while headless—was still massive.
"We can't go back to the coast," Galen said. "The Parthians will swarm the beach."
"We can't stay here," Decimus said. "We'll starve."
Marcus looked North.
"We don't forage," Marcus said.
He walked to the edge of the truck bed. He looked out over the darkened dunes.
"The Parthian supply lines run through the valley," Marcus said. "They were feeding an army of two million. That means massive convoys. Food. Fuel. Ammo."
"They're guarded," Lucilla warned. "Tanks. Walkers."
"Their command structure just vaporized," Marcus said, pointing to the glowing horizon where Antioch used to be. "They are confused. They are scared. They are leaderless."
He looked at Marcia.
"We aren't refugees anymore," Marcus said. "We're raiders."
Marcia grinned. It was a wolf's grin.
"I like the sound of that."
She racked her shotgun.
"We hunt at dawn."
Marcus looked at the rover. At the map glowing on the console.
The destination was set.
Rome.
But the road to Rome was paved with enemies.
[OBJECTIVE UPDATED: SURVIVE THE DESERT.]
[SUB-OBJECTIVE: STEAL EVERYTHING THAT ISN'T BOLTED DOWN.]
Marcus smiled.
"Let's get some sleep," he said. "Tomorrow, we go to war."