Acid rain needled through Chen Feng's helmet visor as he and Flora Rosenkrantz sprinted side by side across the pre-war pedestrian footbridge. The rain sizzled against metal armor, eating through outer layers with an invisible, corrosive hunger. Behind them, spotlights carved through the downpour, twin blades of white light slashing across ancient concrete. Heavy metal drumbeats thumped from vehicle speakers, mingling with the high-pitched whine of chainsaws—dozens of them—revving in mechanical fury.

  Chen's tactical mind cataloged the threat as they ran: modified bikes fanning out through narrow alleys, their riders howling like wolves catching scent. Two six-wheel scavenger trucks, roof-mounted 12.7mm HMGs swiveling with predatory grace, rumbled below at street level. Classic "sheepdog and wolfpack" hunting formation. Flanking intercept positions taken. Kill zone established. And dismounted raiders—cybernetically enhanced berserkers with hydraulic limbs and drug-pumped veins—chasing on foot through passages too tight for vehicles.

  Chen fired his captured Hellwraith SMG in short bursts without aiming, the 7.62mm rounds vanishing into the chemical fog. Flora's 10mm pistol answered with precise shots, each one finding a helmeted head or exposed knee joint. But the raiders kept coming, their numbers undiminished.

  A bullet ricocheted off the bridge's guardrail with a sharp . Flora jerked as the fragment struck her rear armor plate, the impact driving her to her knees. She crawled forward three meters before pushing herself upright, teeth gritted behind her visor. Not a sound escaped her. Only the shallow, rapid breathing through her respirator betrayed the pain.

  Chen grabbed her arm, yanking her toward an access stairway. "Move! The plaza's compromised!"

  He could hear the deep, guttural roar of the six-wheeled trucks' engines vibrating through the ground beneath his boots. The smell of burning rubber and ozone filled his nostrils as the vehicles skidded to a halt at the street below, their mounted guns already traversing toward the bridge.

  "Natural gas mainline's under that access panel," Chen shouted, jerking his chin toward a rusted metal grate twenty meters ahead. He shoved a coil of corporate detonation cord into her gloved hand—thick as a snake, smelling of aged plastic and military-grade explosives. "Blow it in ten seconds. Buy us some fucking time!"

  Flora nodded, her movements stiff but precise despite the wound. "Acknowledged. Ten seconds."

  They plunged down the metal stairs, boots clanging against corroded rungs. The parking structure loomed ahead—a three-story spiral ramp half-collapsed from the nuclear exchange centuries ago. Chen shoved Flora toward a central pillar while he covered their rear.

  "Go! Set it!"

  Flora's fingers worked with clinical efficiency, wrapping the cord around the rusted support beam, securing the timer, then diving behind an overturned corporate sedan as she triggered the countdown.

  Chen joined her just as the world detonated.

  The explosion ripped through the lower levels with a concussive that punched the air from their lungs. Concrete and rebar rained down in a lethal hailstorm. One of the Hellwraith trucks vanished beneath a collapsing floor, its twin 12.7mm machine guns still firing wildly as it disappeared. A dozen raiders were vaporized or crushed under falling debris. The fireball rolled up the spiral ramp like a living thing, consuming oxygen and melting plastic in its path.

  But not all were caught in the blast.

  Four bikes and one remaining truck—its side panel read —pushed through the smoke and fire, their riders howling with savage fury. The roof-mounted HMG spat brass and steel into the concrete around them, chunks exploding like shrapnel against them. A piece of debris flew into Chen's improvised Adamantine chest plate. The impacts drove him back.

  A chainsaw revved to a screaming pitch. A raider leaped from his bike onto a car roof, cybernetic back-implants pulsing with blue stimulant fluid. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated to black voids, veins bulging across his neck like ropes. He raised his modified chainsaw—a jagged-toothed monstrosity fused to his right arm—and lunged at Flora.

  Chen's SMG barked in a short, controlled burst. Two 7.62mm steel-core round caught the berserker in the neck, the third tore through his shoulder pad. His head spun away from his shoulders, landing on the car roof with a wet, meaty thud. The chainsaw kept running for three seconds before sputtering out.

  Chen ejected a magazine. The SMG's slide locked back with a definitive . He cursed, jacking in a new one. Flora's pistol clicked twice before falling silent.

  "One magazine left," she reported, her synthesized voice tight with strain.

  The remaining raiders closed in from three directions. Their only path led upward—through a shattered stairwell to the structure's rooftop. A dead end.

  Cornered.

  They burst onto the rain-slicked roof just as the HMG opened fire. Chen shoved Flora behind a ventilation unit as concrete shards peppered the air around them. He risked a glance over the edge. The alley below was too narrow, to long—no room for cover once they are in it. And the raiders were already mounting the stairs.

  Flora's breath came in ragged gasps behind her visor. "This was... inefficient."

  Chen snorted, wiping acid rain from his faceplate. "You're right. I should've left you back there."

  Carnage-02's crew appeared at the roof access, their weapons raised. Chen fired his last shot—a wild burst that forced them to take cover.

  He scanned below another edge of the roof. Below, a haphazard pile of shipping containers formed a makeshift barrier against the elements. "There. We jump."

  "It's a six-point-one-three-meter drop. My injuries—"

  "Will hurt more when they shoot you. Move!"

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  Chen leaped first, landing with a grunt as his boots sank into the muddy ground between containers. He turned just as Flora jumped. Her injured side betrayed her mid-air; she landed off-balance. Chen caught her before she fell, his arms straining under her armored weight as acid rain hissed against their helmets.

  He lowered her gently. "Stay conscious. We're not done yet."

  Flora pushed away from him, wincing. "I don't require assistance."

  "Your call. Die on your feet then."

  They moved through the container maze, the acid rain casting the district in a sickly, yellow-green glow from flickering neon signs. Flora limped, but kept pace. The Enclave's outer zones had long been a scavenger paradise—centuries of weapon caches occasionally surfacing from the ruins, drawing wastelanders who'd built entire communities around the promise of forgotten tech. This was the Rust Mile, the central bazaar of the district. Makeshift stalls lined the container pathways, their wares protected from the rain by plastic sheeting and rusted corrugated metal.

  A neon sign flickered to life as they passed: [RUST MILE PORNO & NOODLES]. The container-brothel next door featured silhouettes of writhing figures cut from sheet metal, glowing faintly in the downpour. Two sex workers leaned against the wall, smoking e-cigs that glowed red in the gloom. Their cybernetic tattoos pulsed with cheap neon light along their necks and arms.

  Behind them, engine noise grew louder. Hellwraith bikes roared into the narrow street, their riders whooping and firing wildly into the air, headlights cutting through the rain. Vendors and locals scattered like cockroaches, ducking into container shops and slamming makeshift doors shut.

  Chen didn't hesitate. He shoulder-checked the door of a shop he saw, the reinforced metal buckling inward with a deafening crash. Behind him, the store’s sign is barely legible beneath layers of grime and rust. It read:

  The interior was a monument to organized chaos. Mountains of antique firearms covered every surface—assault rifles sourced from illicit wastelander workshops, standard-issue submachineguns from the corporate wars, even a few pre-collapse laser weapons that looked more like art than weapons. Moldy posters advertising Armatech-Lucess products hung crookedly on the walls. In the corner, an ancient cola machine still whirred and chimed despite the centuries of neglect.

  The proprietor of this establishment stood behind a workbench, a cyborg man in his fifties whose skin was blotched with rust-colored lesions. Heavy cybernetics replaced both his arms, the mechanical components clicking and whirring with each movement. His face was a patchwork of rust-colored blotches and gleaming metal implants, his skull shaved bald except for a single, greasy braid. He looked up, eyes wide behind cracked spectacles.

  "Who the f—" he began, his wastelander accent thick.

  Chen collapsed a 22nd-century electromagnetic rifle by sitting on it.

  Rusty's eyes widened. "YOU BROKE IT YOU BUY—"

  Chen pressed the SMG to Rusty's forehead before the man could finish, his voice flat. "I'm fighting Hellwraiths. Lend me guns."

  Rusty froze for exactly one second. Then his face split into a grin that showed more metal than teeth. His eyes sparkled behind his spectacles. "You're fighting Hellwraiths? GREAT! Take all you can carry! TAKE EVERYTHING! HAHAHA!"

  In the wastelands, chaos was opportunity. Violence was entertainment. And starting a fight against Erebus's hunters? That was the stuff of legend—and legendary profits.

  He slapped his mechanical palm against the counter, the impact rattling tools in their holders. He danced around his workbench like a child on festival day. "They've been taxing my district for months! Nobody fights them—nobody lives to tell about it! This is going to be EPIC!"

  Chen tossed the empty Hellwraith SMG into Rusty’s pile and rummaged through his shop. Corporate light machine gun, wastelander-made hand grenades, post-war energy rifles imported from North America—until one thing caught his eyes. Chen Feng grabbed a break-action double-barrel shotgun leaning against the wall. The steel engraving on its upper casing, above the trunnions carved into the shape of a woman's skeleton, hands folded in prayer, wrapped in roses that had long since lost their paint. Cobwebs filled the barrels, giving it the air of a forgotten relic.

  Rusty whistled. "That busted hunting piece? Who the hell uses that? Been on the shelf ELEVEN YEARS—I don’t even remember where the fuck I sourced it." He shrugged, wiping grease from his mechanical fingers. "Megacorp issue. Terrible product positioning—those who can afford it won't want it, those who want it can't afford it. Take it. Free."

  Chen racked the action. The chambers opened with a smooth, oily despite a decade of disuse. He dumped the cobwebs onto the floor. "Shells. Det cord. Anything that goes boom."

  Rusty shoved three crates of mixed ammunition across the counter, followed by a fresh bundle of corporate-made detonation cord. "That's the good stuff—still active after three centuries! My contribution to the cause of dying gloriously!"

  Chen dumped all three crates' worth of shells directly into his pouches—one-gauge slugs and buckshot rounds—or so he believed. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder; the metal clinked sharply against his Adamantine plates.

  Through the cracked window, a scream cut through the rain.

  Chen's head snapped toward the shattered door. Through the downpour, he saw Flora backed against a flipped truck, her pistol raised but empty. Six Hellwraiths surrounded her, their weapons trained on her chest plate. One of them—a chainsaw berserker, his eyes wide with drug-induced frenzy—raised his blade for a slow, showy execution, his mouth twitching into a savage smile, drool dripping from his chin.

  From down the street, a squad leader screamed while sprinting toward them: "NOOO! Erebus said ALIVE, YOU IDIOT—"

  Chen stood in the shop doorway, rain dripping from his visor, the shotgun heavy in his hands. Within him, the thought formed one bitter, depressing line:

  He stepped into the street, raised the shotgun, and fired.

  The slug round hit the chainsaw wielder square in the chest. The impact tore him in half—upper torso and lower body separating cleanly. The rear half of his body slid forward another five meters before stopping. The shockwave flipped two nearby Hellwraiths onto their backs. The slug continued its path, over-penetrating the raider and caved-in the container wall behind him, and finally, exploded in a shower of rusted metal and splinters.

  The recoil wrenched Chen's shoulder and hurled him backward. He crashed through a noodle stand, sending rusted poles and cooking pots clattering across the street. The vendor hiding beneath it screamed curses in a language Chen didn't recognize.

  "HOLY SHIT this gun!" Chen yelled, pushing himself up from the wreckage.

  Another barrel of the gun still held a round—Chen thought it was standard buckshot. He was wrong.

  The second blast sent a cloud of incendiary Drake Shot into the remaining raiders. One Hellwraith was turned into a flailing, flaming torch, his ammunition cooking off with metallic that sent shrapnel flying in all directions. This time, Chen braced properly against the recoil and ducked behind the noodle stand's remains.

  Rusty appeared in the shop doorway, whistling and applauding. "I KNEW that old bastard had secrets! HAHAHAHAHA!"

  The remaining Hellwraiths hesitated for half a second—then broke and fled. Bikes skidded in the mud, their riders abandoning their dead and wounded without a backward glance.

  Chen racked open the shotgun—spent casings ejected into two thin trails of smoke. The muzzle smoking in the acid rain. He approached Flora, who sat on the ground where she'd been cornered. Her helmet was cracked across the visor, revealing one bloodshot eye and a face streaked with grime and rain. Her lips trembled—she tried to speak but couldn't form the word "efficiency" this time. Only a shallow, ragged breath escaped her.

  In the distance, more engines gathered. Spotlights cut through the night like surgical blades, sweeping across the container district.

  Chen slung the shotgun over his shoulder and extended a gloved hand toward her.

  "Coming or not? Stay longer and we really die together."

  Gunfire echoed in the humid air.