Four young men in a desolate, post-apocalyptic desert landscape with industrial ruins under an orange sunset. One has a glowing symbol on his forehead.

THE MINE ELEVATOR The mine elevator door was a fossil—rusted shut by decades of neglect and the desert’s spiteful breath. Eli Triece braced his boots against the metal frame, tendons standing out in his neck as he hauled back on the handle. His arms shook, gold veins flickering under his skin like faulty circuitry. Behind him, Ember leaned against a corroded support beam, grinning. The fading sunlight caught the edges of his clover-shaped birthmark, turning the pale patch on his cheekbone into a ghostly sigil. “Captain Noodler’s gonna pop a vein,” he called to Johansen. Johansen—thick-shouldered and already going gray at seventeen—snorted from his perch atop a dead mining bot. “Nah, let him cook. Kid’s got a death wish.” Eli gritted his teeth. The door didn’t budge. THE CAMP The abandoned mining camp hunched around them like a gutted beast. Shattered floodlights dangled from skeletal towers, and the air stank of oxidized metal and the ozone tang of old explosives. Beyond the camp’s skeletal fences, the desert sprawled—cracked earth bleeding violet under the twin suns’ glare. Ember pushed off the beam and sauntered over, boots crunching on glass. “Alright, hero. My turn.” Eli didn’t move. “I got it.” “Sure you do.” Ember’s calloused hand closed over Eli’s wrist, prying him off the handle with infuriating ease. “But if you snap those spaghetti arms, Elonias’ll feed me to the recycler.” Johansen barked a laugh. “She’d use you to patch the roof first.” Eli’s face burned. He See more