The cold didn't knock. It never did. It simply lived inside the shack, curled up in the corners like an old dog that refused to die.
Ivan woke before the alarm because there was no alarm, only the slow gray creep of light through the cracked plastic window. His breath hung in the air, white and slow, before dissolving into nothing. Twenty years old and already mornings felt like debts coming due. He lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, warped plywood patched with scavenged tin, frost feathering the edges where heat leaked out. The stove had gone cold hours ago. Coal was rationed. Everything was rationed.
He sat up slowly. Joints stiff. Back aching from yesterday's shift. The thin blanket slid off his shoulders and he didn't bother pulling it back. There was no point. Warmth was a memory here, something people talked about the way they talked about old gods.
The shack was barely one room. A partition of hanging blankets separated his corner from Anya's. He listened first, always listened first, for the sound of her breathing. Shallow but steady. Good. No fever spike in the night. That meant he could make it through the day without panic clawing up his throat.
He stood. Boots by the door, laces frayed, soles worn thin. He pulled on the layers: a thermal shirt with holes under the arms, a sweater scavenged from a dead man's locker three winters ago, then the heavy work coat issued by the Conglomerate. Gray, patched, stamped with the eagle and globe logo that meant you belonged to someone now. Property, more like.
He moved quietly. Always quietly. Anya needed sleep more than food some days.
At the partition he paused and pulled the blanket aside just enough to see her.
She was curled on her side, knees drawn up, face half buried in the pillow. Seventeen and small for it, skin pale like paper left in moonlight. Her hair, dark like his but thinner now, spilled across the fabric. The air filter hummed beside her bed, a jury rigged thing he'd built from scavenged parts, running off a car battery he charged at the work site when the overseers weren't looking. It wheezed more than it purred these days. Filters were hard to come by. Clean ones, anyway.
Primary immunodeficiency. That was what the clinic woman had called it years ago, before the clinics closed and the Conglomerate took over medical distribution. One in a hundred thousand, she'd said, voice flat like she was reading a serial number. Body doesn't make the cells it needs to fight infection. Even a cold can kill her. Keep her isolated. Keep her clean. Keep her medicated.
Keep her alive.
Ivan had nodded then, fourteen years old, holding Anya's hand while she cried from the blood draw. He nodded and memorized every word because no one else was going to.
Now he watched her chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. The smallest things became prayers in this world.
He let the blanket fall back into place.
In the main room he lit the small spirit stove, just enough to heat water for tea. Real tea was a myth. This was boiled pine needles and dried mint leaves he'd traded for last month. Bitter, but hot. Hot was what mattered.
He drank it black, standing by the window, looking out at New Petrograd.
The city, or what was left of it, stretched under a sky the color of old steel. Ruined spires and domes loomed in the distance, half collapsed, snow drifting through broken roofs. Closer in were the worker districts, rows of shacks like his built from shipping containers and scavenged brick. Smoke rose here and there from stoves. Not much. People conserved.
Beyond that were the Conglomerate zones. Clean lines. Guard towers. Floodlights even in daylight. Drones humming like insects. That was where the resources went. Rare earths pulled from poisoned soil. Tech scraps from before the Fall. All shipped out to Beijing, to Berlin, to wherever the new empires sat warm and fed.
They called it reconstruction. Partnership. Stability after chaos.
Ivan called it theft with better branding.
He finished the tea, rinsed the cup in cold water, and checked his pack. Lunch tin with yesterday's bread and a strip of dried meat. Tools. Gloves. A small vial of antibiotics he'd managed to buy on the black market last week.
For Anya. Always for Anya.
He pulled on his hat, fur lining worn bald in places, and stepped outside.
The cold hit like a slap. Always did, no matter how many layers he wore. Wind off the Neva carried ice crystals that stung his face. He pulled his scarf over his mouth and nose and started walking.
The paths between shacks were already trampled by early risers. People nodded as they passed, short and curt. No smiles. Smiles cost energy. A few kids darted between buildings, scavenging for anything burnable. Their mothers would be at the water pumps or ration lines.
Ivan kept his head down, hands in his pockets, pace steady. He'd learned early. Don't look weak. Don't look strong. Just move. Survive.
The walk to the site took forty minutes. Past the market stalls just opening, people trading scraps, batteries, meds, rumors. Past the Conglomerate checkpoint where armed guards in clean uniforms checked work permits. Ivan held his out without being asked. The scanner beeped green. He passed through.
The crew gathered near the transport trucks. Twenty men, maybe twenty five. Familiar faces, scarred and weathered. Mikhail the Ukrainian, broad as a bear. Sergei with the limp from a beam fall last year. Old Viktor, fifty if he was a day, coughing into his sleeve.
The overseer, Li today, stood on a crate with a clipboard in hand, breath fogging in perfect rings.
"Site Delta Seven," he announced in accented Russian. "Warehouse clearance. Full demolition prep. Conglomerate wants it clean by end of week for new depot."
Grumbles rolled through the crew. Warehouse jobs were bad. Unstable structures. Hidden drops. Asbestos dust if you were unlucky. But work was work.
They loaded into the trucks. Open backs, benches, wind whipping through. Ivan sat near the edge, legs dangling, watching the city recede.
He thought about Anya again. Always did on the ride. Wondered if she'd woken yet. If the filter was still running. If the fever would stay down today.
He thought about his name too. Ivan. Common as dirt. His mother had liked it, she'd said once, before the sickness took her. Strong name. Russian name. He'd kept it even when kids mocked it as old fashioned. Now it felt like armor. Plain. Unnoticeable. Good for surviving.
The truck lurched to a stop.
Delta Seven was an old industrial zone on the outskirts. Warehouses like concrete tombs, vines and frost cracking the walls. Snow piled high against loading docks. The crew fanned out, tools clanking.
Ivan's team took the main building. Three stories, partially collapsed on one end. They started with the perimeter, marking weak points, prying open frozen doors.
Inside, darkness swallowed their flashlights.
Dust hung thick. The smell of rot, metal, and old chemicals. Shelves toppled, contents spilled. Crates of circuit boards, rusted machinery, papers yellowed and curling.
They worked methodically. Pry. Haul. Sort. Salvageable tech to one pile for Conglomerate inspectors. Junk to another. Dangerous stuff marked for specialists.
Hours passed. Backs aching. Hands numb even in gloves.
Lunch break came late. They sat on overturned crates, eating cold rations, breath steaming.
Mikhail chewed slowly. "Heard they're bringing in new drones. Ones that scan for radiation pockets. Means more restricted zones."
Sergei spat. "Means less scavenging. More control."
Old Viktor coughed. "Always more control."
Ivan ate in silence. Listening. Always listening.
After break, back in.
Deeper now. Second floor via a rickety metal stair that groaned under weight.
Here the collapse was worse. Part of the roof had caved in years ago. Snow drifted inside, freezing into sculptures. Pale light filtered through gaps.
Ivan worked alone for a stretch, clearing a side corridor blocked by fallen shelving. He heaved metal aside, muscles burning, sweat freezing on his skin.
Then the floor shifted.
Not much. Just a tremor. But enough.
A groan from above. Dust sifted down.
He froze.
Another groan, louder.
He backed up slowly, carefully.
Too late.
The section in front of him gave way. Beams and concrete rained down, a roar filling the space. He threw himself sideways as the floor buckled, landing hard amid debris.
For a moment there was silence. Only his heartbeat.
Then Mikhail's voice, distant. "Ivan. You alive?"
"Yeah," he called back. "Pinned but breathing."
He wasn't pinned. Just bruised. But the collapse had opened something. A hidden space behind the wall, revealed like a secret the building had kept for decades.
A door. Metal. Heavy. Unmarked. Slightly ajar from the shock.
Curiosity pulled him closer. Stupid, dangerous curiosity.
He approached.
The door opened with a screech of rusted hinges.
Inside wasn't storage or offices.
It was a lab.
Old. Pre Fall. Intact somehow. Dust thick, but equipment still in place. Consoles. Cracked screens. Strange devices. Crystalline structures. Wires like veins. At the center, a pedestal with what looked like a helmet or interface, glowing faintly, impossibly, after all these years.
Power. From where?
Ivan stepped inside.
The air felt different. Heavy. Charged.
He shouldn't touch anything. He knew that.
His hand moved anyway.
His fingers brushed the console.
A hum rose, low and deep in his bones.
Light flared, soft blue.
Something shifted inside him.
Not pain.
Not exactly.
Isolation.
Pure and sudden and absolute.
Like the world pulled away.
Like he was alone, truly alone, for the first time.
And in that aloneness, strength.
The debris around the doorway halted.
Hovered.
He stared.
What—
The thought never formed into words. Just feeling.
Independence.
The hum deepened.
Something ancient stirred.
Something that had always been there.
Waiting.