The Waking

  Coming back to consciousness wasn't a sudden gasp of air. It was a slow, agonizing crawl through crushed glass.

  First came the smell. It was a sharp, clinical cocktail of rubbing alcohol, old copper, and wet ash. Then came the sound. A low, collective hum of human misery. People weeping, people whispering, the shuffling of feet, and the distant, rhythmic dripping of water. Finally, the pain. It was a massive, physical presence in the room, sitting directly on Elias’s chest. Every time his lungs tried to expand, a jagged knife of fire dragged across his ribcage.

  Elias groaned, his eyelids fluttering. They felt like they were glued shut with grit and dried sweat.

  "Don't move," a woman’s voice said. It was soft, but tight with exhaustion. "Your ribs are splintered. If you twist, you’re going to puncture a lung."

  Elias forced his eyes open. The light was dim, filtered through grimy, rain-streaked skylights. He was lying on a makeshift cot pushed against the wall of what looked like an abandoned pharmacy. The shelves had been stripped bare, and the floor was covered in sleeping bags, dirty blankets, and bleeding people.

  Standing over him was a woman with dark circles under her eyes. Her clothes were stained with dried blood, and her hands were wrapped in makeshift bandages.

  "Where..." Elias croaked. His throat felt like sandpaper. "Where is the Tower?"

  "Four blocks east," the woman said. She reached for a plastic cup of water and held it to his lips. "Drink slowly. You’ve been unconscious for fourteen hours."

  Elias drank. The water was lukewarm and tasted like iron, but it was the best thing he had ever consumed. "Who are you?" he whispered, falling back against the thin pillow.

  "My name is Mara," she said, pulling a roll of heavy medical tape from her pocket. She leaned over him, her hands surprisingly gentle as she checked the tight binding around his torso. "You’re in the triage center. We moved as many people as we could out of the rain."

  Elias blinked, trying to clear the fog from his brain. He looked around the crowded room. There were no Peacekeepers. There were no smiling, lobotomized citizens. There were just people, hurting and terrified, trying to bandage each other's wounds.

  "Who brought me here?" Elias asked, panic suddenly spiking his heart rate. "The Consultant. The man in the suit—"

  "He's safe," a deep, booming voice echoed from the back of the room.

  The Giant in the Corner

  Elias turned his head, wincing.

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor near the shattered front windows of the pharmacy was Thomas. The giant Warden had removed the heavy, hydraulic armor from his torso, revealing a thick, scarred chest covered in surgical ports and cybernetic integration nodes. He still wore the hydraulic leg braces and the heavy crushing gauntlets, but he looked less like a weapon and more like a broken machine.

  Next to Thomas, tied securely to a structural pillar with a length of thick electrical cable, was The Consultant. The architect of the city was still catatonic, staring blankly at the floor, his expensive suit now little more than a dirty rag.

  Mara followed Elias’s gaze. She shuddered slightly. "The big one carried you in," Mara said, keeping her voice low. "He was holding you like a baby. People screamed when they saw him. The Wardens... they did terrible things yesterday. But he just walked in, set you down, and asked for bandages."

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  Elias looked at Thomas. The cybernetic giant was currently using his massive, terrifying pincer-gauntlet to clumsily—but gently—hand a small piece of ration-bread to a crying child.

  "He's awake now," Elias said softly. "Just like the rest of us."

  Mara looked back down at Elias. Her eyes traced the burns on his face and the deep bruising on his neck. "You did it, didn't you?" she asked. Her voice trembled, a mixture of awe and absolute terror. "I saw the flash on the roof. I saw the spark right before the hum stopped. You're the one who turned it off."

  Elias didn't know how to answer. He didn't feel like a savior. He felt like a man who had kicked over a hornet’s nest. "I broke the machine," Elias admitted. "I didn't know what would happen after."

  Mara nodded slowly. She reached out and touched his arm. "My husband cut his face open," she whispered, a tear escaping her eye and cutting a clean track through the soot on her cheek. "He was bleeding, and the machine made him smile through it. When you broke the machine... he finally screamed. It was the most awful sound I’ve ever heard."

  She squeezed Elias’s arm, her grip suddenly fierce. "Thank you. Thank you for letting him scream."

  The Drying Tap

  Before Elias could respond, the temperature in the room seemed to drop by ten degrees. The shadows in the corner of the pharmacy deepened, twisting and coalescing into the familiar, flickering silhouette of a man in a trench coat.

  The Stranger had returned.

  He didn't look at Mara. He looked directly at Elias. "WITNESS. YOU ARE CONSCIOUS. THIS IS OPTIMAL. THE TIMELINE HAS ACCELERATED."

  "Stranger," Elias breathed, trying to sit up. The pain forced him back down. "What’s wrong? Did the Capital send troops?"

  "NEGATIVE. TROOPS REQUIRE LOGISTICS. THE CAPITAL DOES NOT INTEND TO FIGHT YOU, ELIAS. THEY INTEND TO STARVE YOU."

  The entity pointed a flickering finger toward the back of the pharmacy, where a group of citizens was crowded around a small industrial sink, trying to fill plastic jugs.

  As Elias watched, the stream of water from the faucet sputtered. It coughed out a burst of rusty brown sludge, and then stopped completely. A hollow hiss of air echoed from the pipes.

  A murmur of panic rippled through the crowd. A man furiously twisted the handles, but nothing happened.

  "The water pressure just died," Mara said, standing up, her brow furrowing in confusion. "That’s the main municipal line. It’s on a gravity feed from the reservoir. It shouldn't just stop."

  "THE RESERVOIR HAS BEEN CAPPED," The Stranger announced, his voice vibrating in Elias’s teeth. "THE CAPITAL HAS INITIATED QUARANTINE PROTOCOL OMEGA. SECTOR 4 HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS A BIO-HAZARD."

  Elias’s blood ran cold. He remembered the white drone. He remembered the cold, calculating eye of the lens. "They're cutting us off," Elias realized, the true horror of the situation dawning on him.

  The Cage

  The Stranger nodded. The scrolling text on his body moved faster, processing the incoming wave of terror from the city. "TERRESTRIAL COMMUNICATIONS HAVE BEEN SEVERED. THE POWER GRID IS PERMANENTLY DISABLED. THE PERIMETER WALLS HAVE BEEN SEALED WITH MAGNETIC LOCKS. ANY CITIZEN APPROACHING THE BORDER WILL BE TARGETED BY AUTOMATED LETHAL FORCE."

  Elias looked around the room. He saw the wounded. He saw the children sharing scraps of ration-bread. Ten million people. Trapped in a concrete box. Without the Consultant’s algorithm to distribute food, and without the Capital supplying water, the city wouldn't last a week.

  They wouldn't need troops to put down the rebellion. Thirst would do the job for them.

  "They're going to let us die," Elias whispered, his fists clenching the thin blanket. "All of us."

  "Elias?" Mara asked, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. She couldn't see the Stranger, but she could see the absolute despair washing over Elias’s face. "What's happening?"

  Elias looked at her. He looked at Thomas in the corner, holding the crying child. He had promised these people freedom. He had delivered them into a cage.

  "Help me up," Elias commanded, his voice suddenly hard.

  "You can't walk," Mara protested, pressing a hand against his shoulder. "Your ribs—"

  "Help me up!" Elias snarled, the adrenaline finally kicking back into his system, overriding the pain.

  Mara flinched, but she grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. Elias swayed dangerously, his vision swimming, but he locked his knees. He grabbed his rusted wrench from the floor, leaning on it like a cane.

  He looked at the Stranger. "Where is the main distribution hub for the Sector?" Elias asked. "Where does the food come from?"

  "SECTOR 4 LOGISTICS HUB. TWO MILES NORTH. IT IS CURRENTLY SECURED BY WARDEN HOLDHOLDS WHO HAVE NOT SURRENDERED," the entity replied.

  Elias turned to Thomas. "Thomas!" Elias shouted across the room.

  The giant cyborg stood up, his hydraulic legs whining. He looked at Elias, awaiting orders.

  "Leave the Consultant tied up," Elias said, limping toward the door, every step a fresh wave of agony. "We have a city to feed. And we have to steal the food to do it."

  The Rules Have Changed.

  The Objective: Elias transitions from an assassin to a general. He has to secure resources before the newly freed citizens turn on each other from starvation.

  Next Chapter: The Bread Riot. We are heading to the Logistics Hub. But Elias isn't the only one who realized the water stopped running.