The plain had gone quiet in that sacred way it sometimes did at dusk.

The sun was sinking low on the horizon, painting the sky in deep oranges and bruised purples that bled across the endless flatland.

The Fallen City sat a hundred meters ahead of us, a dark silhouette of broken towers and ruined buildings against the fiery sky, close enough now that we could make out the jagged outlines of collapsed skyscrapers and the skeletal remains of what had once been a thriving metropolis. Far enough that we had all silently agreed to wait for full dark before attempting to enter.

The driver’s seat sat empty, the leather still faintly indented from Mercury’s absence. She had stepped out minutes earlier to relieve herself behind a low dune. Richard had wandered off too, muttering about stretching his legs.

It was just me and Jenn in the car.

I sat in the front passenger seat, one arm resting along the door panel, fingers brushing the cool metal edge. Jenn had moved forward from the back, leaning intimately between the front seats.

Her shoulder pressed warmly against mine, our bare arms brushing with every small movement. The fading sunset light poured through the windshield, washing her face in soft golds and roses, catching in her eyes and the loose strands of hair framing her features.

The plain outside the windows was perfectly still, no wind, no movement, just the soft ticking of the cooling engine and the distant call of some night bird.

"The outside has one rule," Jenn said softly.

"Survival," I said.

"Yes." She paused. "Just survival."

I knew the rule. I had lived under it for twenty years before the system and the walls had introduced me to other possibilities. I waited to see where she was going with it, because Jenn didn’t say things without a destination.

The back door opened with a quiet metallic click. Richard slid into the rear seat, his thin frame filling the space as he pulled the door shut. The car rocked slightly.

"Why did you bring us to the Fallen City?" he asked, the question finally breaking free after simmering for hours. His tone was calm but pointed.

"It’s the only place we can get what we need," I said.

He was quiet for a moment. "You’re from the walls. Aren’t you."

Not a question. He had figured it out somewhere between the Safe City and the cereals and had been sitting on it.

"Yes," I admitted.

"And the plan is to get back there." Also not a question.

"Yes."

"Then why don’t you let us go?" he said. "Because I don’t think me and Jenn have any business with whatever you’re doing in that city."

We, I noted. They had been talking while Mercury and I were occupied. He knew Jenn wasn’t from the walls. He had appointed himself her representative without being asked, which was either genuine care or Richard being Richard.

"Nobody’s holding anyone," I said. "You can go wherever you want."

He smiled from the back. The smile of someone who hadn’t fully believed that until this moment.

"We came outside on a mission," I said. "That city is where we complete it. If we complete it, there’s a chance the walls open for everyone. Not just us."

"Chance?" Richard caught the word immediately.

I sat with it. The honest answer was that I had no guarantee. I was one person with a system and a charge and a list of things I had promised people I wasn’t certain I could deliver. What happened to outsiders after the mission was a decision that lived above my level.

"Do you have somewhere safe you can go?" I asked him. "While we go in."

"There’s a town I know," he said, without hesitation.

"Then go to it," I said. "Let me talk to Mercury."

I opened the door but didn’t step out immediately.

I thought about Jenn sitting behind me. What Richard’s words had just opened up for her. The walls might not open. The mission might fail. The people who sent us out here had already shown what they thought of us by leaving us in a forsaken city hotel while Oddo took arrows in the open ground.

I reached back and took the communication watch off my wrist, handing it to Jenn. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"What’s that?" Richard asked, leaning forward.

"A watch," I said. "For communication." I turned fully in the seat to face Jenn. "You press here. If we get separated. If something goes wrong. Call Azure or Daphne. Tell them you’re from Bram."

Jenn looked down at the watch in her hands, then back up at me. Her eyes were steady.

"Okay," she said quietly.

I stepped out and closed the door.

***

The plain was still. The sun was dropping toward the horizon, the specific orange of a plain evening that I had watched ten thousand times from the other side of everything. The Fallen City sat ahead in the cooling light.

Mercury was nowhere visible.

She had been gone longer than necessary. I hadn’t registered it while I was in the car but I registered it now.

"Mercury," I called.

No answer. I walked around the front of the car. Nothing. The plain on that side stretched flat and empty as far as the eye could see.

"Is everything okay?" Richard, opening his door behind me.

I didn’t answer. I walked around to the back of the car.

Her boots first. Visible on the ground. Moving slightly. My heartbeat changed before my brain finished the sentence it was forming.

Let it not be what I think.

I came around the rear of the car. Mercury lay on her side in the sand, wrists and ankles tightly bound with dark tape. A strip of the same tape sealed her mouth. Her wide, terrified eyes locked onto mine instantly, screaming everything her voice couldn’t. The last light of sunset caught in her eyes as she struggled against the tape.

I spun around.

A dark shape moved fast. Something heavy and brutal slammed into the side of my head with crushing force.

The plain spun violently, colors bleeding together, and then everything went black.