Zubair heaved the crate like it weighed half what it did and slid it into the bed.

No one wanted to expose the fact that Sera had a special space that she could put everything in. She was wanted enough for simply being female, the General didn’t need to know just how much more she was.

Lachlan dragged the dead bodies into a tight line with the practiced disgust of a man who liked cleaning up even when he hated what he was touching.

Alexei walked the span, gathering knives and radios, cutting off insignia patches and dropping them in a pocket like a magpie who believed in evidence.

Elias stripped batteries and clamped a length of chain across the broken drum to pull it over the side when they moved.

Sera took the radios Alexei handed her, popped the backs, palmed the chips, and covertly fed both guts and shells into her space until they were gone.

She pulled a jug of water and a roll of gauze back out a second later and lobbed both to Lachlan, who had a line across his ribs that would look worse later. He grinned like it tickled.

"Thank you, peaches," he purred and she rolled her eyes.

She answered with a look that meant eat first next time and got a wink that promised he’d pretend to forget.

A horn blew low and long from somewhere west.

Not a car. Not a truck. Air.

The bridge web hummed under her boots like a wire. Elias lifted his head, expression accepting trouble like an old friend.

"They’re testing the grid," he warned. "We’ve got two options: we crawl now and take the shock, or we break the control box and make sure the next guy doesn’t get to use it on us."

"Let’s break the control box," Sera chose, already moving.

The control cabinet sat in a concrete pocket under the south tower where wind and thieves didn’t see it first.

Two locks and a chain tried to convince the world they mattered.

Alexei convinced them they didn’t with one pry and a knife twist.

Elias pulled the panel and pointed at the bus bars and the relay bank with the satisfaction of a man who still believed electricity should behave.

"Kill the feed there, there, there. Then spike it."

Zubair’s fingers hovered and the copper glowed red, then orange, then white.

The plastic housings slumped. The relays lost the will to be anything but mess. Alexei shoved a chunk of rebar through the guts and wrenched until something important cracked deep in the cabinet.

He dropped the bent metal with the kind of disdain usually reserved for cheap wine.

The horn blew again. The bridge didn’t hum this time. Elias smiled a fraction. "Grid’s gone."

Sera turned back to the center span, took in her horde, the trucks, the smoke pushing away on new wind. The river boiled brown under them and ran on without caring.

"We need to get this stuff loaded," she repeated.

They finished fast. Rounds. Tools. Two spare plates off the sandbag line. Water from a stash the Cartel thought only they remembered. A bolt cutter. A pair of heavy gloves Zubair handed her like a promise he expected to be cashed.

Elias shoved the last battery into a bag and slung it. "If we want daylight, we move," he reminded.

Sera climbed back into the cab. Luci beat her to the bench and sprawled across both their shins like a living seatbelt.

Zubair shut her door with a palm light enough to look like respect, then rounded for the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.

Alexei dropped the last radio under a tire and ground it into pieces. Lachlan hauled himself into the bed and drummed the roof twice.

Because tradition must be upheld or the world would end...

Again.

The trucks rolled out. The barricade burned behind them, dwindling in the mirrors.

On the far bank, a low bluff rose, seeded with scrub and the skeletons of billboards. Ahead, the highway unfurled south—cracked, buckled in places, but there.

Alexei cracked his window and let air in. "We’ll hit their next listening post in fifteen," he guessed, eyes on the ditch lines and how they funneled sound. "If the horn came from where I think it did, the mast is closer than I like."

"Good," Zubair grunted. Heat hummed in his wrists, wanting to meet something built to stop them.

Elias unfolded the map one more time and tapped a point with his knuckle. "Gate Nine is here," he informed, tone all business. "You can’t miss it. That may be the point."

Sera looked through the windshield at a sky that had learned to be the color of dust and fire. A smear of darker shapes marked the horizon where flat met built.

Not a city yet. Not a palace. Not the mast.

Something between. She felt the creature under her ribs stretch like a cat in a good patch of sun.

"Next stop," Lachlan called from the bed, wind stealing half his words, "customer service."

"Keep your jokes," Alexei drawled. "We’re about to meet management."

"Management bleeds," Zubair promised, small and sure.

Sera didn’t argue. She lifted two fingers off the door frame in a motion that meant push and the trucks picked up speed.

A mile ahead, a wire strung between two gutted light poles glinted once in the sun—thin enough to miss at a glance, high enough to kiss a windshield. Elias saw it the same second she did. "Wire," he snapped. "Cutters."

Alexei was already halfway out his window with the bolt cutter in hand, balance casual, eyes on the line and the ditch to their right coughed dust as a small convoy crawled out.

They nosed onto the southbound lanes with a white flag tied to the lead antenna and a loudspeaker that crackled to life: "Bridge Five—identify. You’re crossing into General territory. Pull over. You will be processed."

Sera smiled without humor and reached for the door latch.