They pass over the structures high enough that if I wasn’t looking for them I’d probably miss their presence. Moving intight arcs with overlapping coverage, doubling back in patterns that leave no gaps between them.
My stomach drops.
“That’s not…” I shake my head, trying to force the thought into something that makes sense. “That’s not a sweep pattern.”
No answer, but I don’t need one because I can see it. They’re not looking for something that might be there. They’re watching something they expect to be.
“They’re concentrating on the area before the city,” I say.
That means… I look lower, scanning the dunes between us and the broken lines where stone meets sand. That’s when I see it. Movement.
Figures.
Small against the scale of the desert, partially obscured by drifting sand, but there, moving in coordinated lines across the dunes. Too controlled to be survivors. My pulse spikes.
“There’s ground movement,” I say, sharper now. “Not creatures. Organized.”
I take a step forward, angling for a better view, and his hand closes around my arm. I stop.
I widen my view instead of locking onto one point. And that’s when I see it. Off to the side. Partially hidden behind a rise of sand that blocks it from the city itself, but not from where we stand—a transport.
Low. Dark. Angular.
Set down in the shadow of the dune like it was placed there deliberately to avoid detection from the city itself. My breath catches.
“That wasn’t there before,” I whisper.
It couldn’t have been. We would have seen it. Known. Planned for it. This is new. Recent. Active.
The drones shift overhead, tightening their pattern, crossing paths directly above the outer edge of the city where the figures move below. None of this is random; they’re not searching; they’re containing.
“They’re not looking for us out here,” I say slowly, the shape of it forming as I speak. “They’re not sweeping the desert.”
My gaze tracks from the drones… to the figures… to the transport.
“They’re watching the city.”
The wind drags across the dunes, thin lines of sand lifting and falling in the red light. Nothing else moves. No signs of survivors. No signals. No life. He shifts at my side, away from the city. I hesitate.
The city holds me, those broken angles, the promise of walls that don’t shift, the idea of something solid after days of nothing but sand and heat and constant movement.
“We can’t just turn away,” I say, the words coming out sharper than I intend. “That’s the best cover we’ve seen since we left the valley. Stone, metal structures thick enough to block scans. If we get inside?—”
“Trap.”
The word cuts me off. I turn toward him.
“That’s not a trap,” I push back. “That’s exactly what we’ve been trying to reach. We planned for this. There are lower levels, reinforced sections—if the structures held, we could be underground in minutes. They won’t be able to track us from above. There are others there too. People who will help us.”
“No. They are already there.”
His gaze doesn’t shift from the city.
“They’re not inside,” I counter, forcing logic through the tightening in my chest. “They’re circling it. Watching it. That means it’s not compromised yet. If it was, they wouldn’t be searching the perimeter—staying out of sight—they’d be inside, locking it down.”
No response. I step forward, angling toward the slope that would take us down into the approach.
“We don’t have anything better than that,” I continue. “Out here we’re exposed. You said it yourself. The air and ground patterns are aligning. We stay in open terrain, we get caught.”
