Part 1: The Weight of Dust

The sun was a vengeful eye, unblinking and merciless. It scorched the cracked earth where Jessa trekked, her boots kicking up plumes of dust that clung to her sweat-soaked headscarf. The remains of Interstate 10 lay buried under dunes of gray silt, the skeletons of cars half-submerged like ancient relics. To the east, the jagged skyline of Phoenix loomed—a necropolis of leaning towers, their glass facades long ago shattered by colossal dust storms and scavenger raids.

“You’re slowing us down,” snapped Dax, her brother’s voice sharp beneath his respirator. He adjusted the straps of his pack, loaded with salvaged solar cells and a rusted Geiger counter. At twenty-three, Dax had the wiry build of a coyote and the temper to match.

Jessa didn’t dignify him with a reply. Her ribs still ached from last week’s skirmish with wasteland foragers. The wound on her shoulder—a gash from a serrated knife—throbbed beneath its makeshift bandage, a strip of cloth boiled in vinegar. Infection was a death sentence in the Wastes, and she could already feel the fever simmering in her veins.

They’d been walking for three days. Their canteens were down to tepid sips, their rations reduced to crumbling protein bars rummaged from a a long-looted truck stop. The Oasis wasn’t a place. It was a myth—a rumor whispered by traders of an underground reservoir guarded by a massive geothermal-powered AI entity that had been around since re-collapse times. Jessa didn’t believe in myths. She believed in the weight of her revolver, its cylinder loaded with .45 rounds.

“Storm’s coming,” Dax muttered, squinting at the horizon.

Jessa followed his gaze. A wall of amber clouds churned in the distance, devouring the sky. Dust storms in the Wastes weren’t just weather; they were carnivores. They scoured flesh from bone, filled lungs with silica, and left survivors blind and coughing blood. But this storm had shapes moving within it—hulking, uneven silhouettes. Jessa’s hand drifted to her revolver.

“Harvesters,” she hissed.

Dax froze. The word hung between them, sour as bile.

The Harvesters didn’t raid. They extracted. They stalked the Wastes in armored trucks with cage trailers, hunting survivors not for slaves or sport, but for parts. Livers. Lungs. Corneas. Hearts. The Wastes had no hospitals, no antibiotics, no mercy—only the Harvesters’ meat markets, where a healthy kidney could buy a warlord another year of life. And the Harvesters had a particular taste for siblings. Genetic matches were rare. Profitable.

“Run,” Jessa said.

Part 2: Bones of the Old World

The storm hit as they reached the Metro’s collapsed entrance. Wind screamed through the ruins, sandblasting the concrete pillars and scouring Jessa’s exposed skin as she and Dax slid into the dark tunnels. Jessa flicked on her solar flashlight, its beam cutting through the sepia haze. The station was a graveyard of the old world: turnstiles rusted into abstract sculptures, ticket machines gutted for copper, and a faded mural of a smiling family boarding a train. The caption read “Visit Sunny Phoenix!”

“Here,” Dax said, kicking aside debris to reveal a steel door marked MAINTENANCE ACCESS. The PetroNova logo—a glacier speared by an oil rig—was engraved into the metal.

Jessa’s jaw tightened. PetroNova’s fingerprints were everywhere in the collapse. They’d drilled the Arctic into Swiss cheese, fueled denial with lobbyist cash, and when the Thawed God’s plagues began, they’d sold “antiviral solutions” to the highest bidder. Her parents had traded their last stash of gold for one of those vials. It had killed them faster than the fever.

Dax pried the door open with a crowbar, revealing a ladder descending into blackness. “VIP bunker. Rumor says it’s got enough meds to stock an entire hospital.”

The bunker was colder underground, the air tinged with mildew and the metallic tang of aging filters. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with crates labeled ANTIVIRAL PROTOTYPE-7 and EMERGENCY RATIONS. Jessa’s flashlight caught a row of vials, their glass glinting like trapped stars. PetroNova’s stamp glared from every label.

“Jackpot,” Dax breathed, reaching for a vial.

“Don’t.” Jessa grabbed his wrist. “These could be placebos. Or poison.”

“You think I care?” He shook her off. “We sell one of these in El Paso, we eat for a month.”

“And if they’re real? You want to be the reason some warlord gets stronger?”

Before Dax could retort, a voice cut through the shadows.

“How noble.”

A figure stepped into the light.

Part 3: The Architect of Order

Jessa’s finger froze on the revolver’s trigger.

He was neither a scarred brute nor a deranged killer. He wore a faded suit jacket over a radiation vest, his face clean-shaven and unremarkable—a face designed to be forgotten. His eyes, though, were sharp and calculating, framed by circular glasses cracked at the edges. His piercing gaze unnerving, as if burning through your soul.

“You’ve found my legacy,” he said, gesturing to the antiviral tubes. “My name is Dr. Elias Vorne, former Director of Resource Allocation for PetroNova.” His voice was calm, almost professorial. “PetroNova’s final act of genius. Not a cure for the plagues—a cure for hope.”

Dax stepped back, recognition dawning. “You… you were on the news saying the water wars were ‘manageable.’”

“And they are,” Vorne replied, adjusting his glasses. “Chaos is simply a resource waiting to be structured. I create order from confusion. The Harvesters? My employees. The organs they collect fund the Oasis.”

Jessa’s grip on her revolver tightened. “You’re the warlord.”

“A warlord trades bullets for power. I trade data.” He tapped a tablet on his wrist, pulling up a holographic map of the Southwest. “The Oasis AI tracks every aquifer, every survivor, every drop of water. We stabilize scarcity. No more hoarding, no more riots—just equilibrium.”

“By selling kidneys?” Dax spat.

“By assigning value.” Vorne’s tone hardened. “Your parents died because they believed in fairness. The world is a Petri dish, and I am its scientist. Adaptation requires sacrifice.”

Part 4: The Calculus of Survival

Vorne led them deeper into the bunker, bypassing biometric scanners with a flick of his wrist. The walls gave way to a cavernous server farm, geothermal pipes snaking into the earth. At its center stood the Oasis AI—a monolithic machine studded with PetroNova insignias, its screens flashing:

    • Water reserves: 1.2% of pre-collapse levels

    • Optimal human carrying capacity: 4,312

    • Current population: 9,887

“The math is clear,” Vorne said. “Half of you must die so the rest survive. The Harvesters cull the excess. The Oasis rewards contributors.”

Jessa’s shoulder twitched, her fever spiking. “You’re playing God.”

“God is dead. I’m an auditor.” He pulled up a file labeled Jessa & Dax Reyes. “Your genetic compatibility makes you ideal donors. Submit to harvesting, and the Oasis grants your community water for a year.”

Dax lunged, but a Harvester emerged from the shadows, a stun baton crackling with voltage.

“Think bigger,” he urged, his voice a monotone sermon. He gestured to the holographic map pulsing above them—a spiderweb of red nodes marking refugee camps, green dots for Harvesters, and a single blue vein threading through the Southwest: the aquifer. “What is a life worth? Three hundred liters of water? A vial of antibiotics?”

Jessa winced from the pain flaring like an electric shock through her infected shoulder. “You’re pricing people like cattle.”

“Cattle?” Vorne’s laugh was a dry crackle. “Cattle have intrinsic value. A human life is a liability.” He swiped to a pre-collapse graph: CO2 levels, water tables, population curves all intersecting at a crimson singularity. “We passed the carrying capacity threshold long ago. PetroNova’s models said we had two options: let billions starve chaotically… or monetize the deficit.”

Dax stepped forward, fists clenched. “My parents died because of your ‘models.’ They trusted PetroNova’s cure.”

“And they were right to.” Vorne’s gaze sharpened. “The antivirals extended global productivity by 9.3 months—long enough to build this.” He nodded to the Oasis servers. “Your parents were pioneers. Sacrifices.”

Jessa spat at his feet. “You don’t get to call them that.”

“No?” Vorne leaned in, his breath reeking of mint tabs and stale coffee. “What do you call a firefighter who dies in a blaze? A hero. What do you call a scientist who dies perfecting a vaccine? A martyr. Your parents burned to keep the lights on a little longer. The only difference is I don’t lie about the math.”

He tapped the tablet. A live feed appeared: a squatter camp outside El Paso, children digging for roots in cracked earth. “That’s your alternative! Starvation with a heaping side of virtue. The Oasis offers efficiency.”

“You’re farming them.” Jessa stared at the screens. The Oasis wasn’t a myth—it was a predator, digesting humanity into numbers.

“Farming implies waste,” Vorne said. “We optimize. Pre-collapse, we let 9 million starve yearly while burning crops for biofuel. Now? Every calorie, every drop, every organ is accounted for.”

Dax’s voice cracked. “And that’s better?”

“It’s following the laws of nature.” Vorne’s finger traced the aquifer’s blue vein on the hologram. “You cling to morality because you lack the courage to calculate. But morality didn’t stop the permafrost from melting. It didn’t stop the Thawed God.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “The Thawed God isn’t a plague. It’s this—treating people like spreadsheet cells.” 

Vorne sighed. “Sentiment. The final luxury.”

Part 5: The Harvest

Vorne’s cracked glasses glinted as he tapped his tablet. “Harvest them.”

The Harvesters lunged. Dax swung a crowbar at the nearest one, the clang echoing through the bunker. Jessa fired her revolver, the bullet ricocheting off a Harvester’s helmeted skull. They were outnumbered, outarmed.

“Genetic matches are too rare to waste,” Vorne said, his voice calm over the pandemonium. “Restrain the girl. Process the boy first.”

A stun baton jammed into Dax’s ribs. He collapsed, convulsing, as two Harvesters dragged him toward a steel table. Jessa shrieked, firing again—this time hitting a Harvester’s upper chest. Black fluid oozed from the wound, but the mutated creature didn’t flinch. 

“Stop!” she roared, as the Harvesters restrained her and took her gun.

Vorne grabbed her forearm. “Watch. Learn.”

The Harvesters strapped Dax down, their tools humming to life. A bone saw. A vacuum hose. A laser scalpel.

“Jess—!” Dax’s voice cut off as a Harvester clamped a mask over his face.

“Anesthetic is a luxury,” Vorne explained. “But screams unsettle the organs.”

Dax’s muffled howling dissolved into a wet gurgle as the laser scalpel carved through his ribcage. Jessa’s vision blurred—from fever, from tears, she couldn’t tell. Vorne’s grip on her forearm tightened, his fingers cold and unyielding.

“Observe the precision,” he said, pointing to the Harvesters’ tools. “No waste. Even his screams are recycled.”

A vacuum hose slurped blood from the incision, funneling it into a bioreactor. Dax’s remaining eye locked onto Jessa, wide and uncomprehending. Run, he mouthed silently.

She lunged for her revolver, but a Harvester kicked it into shadows. Vorne sighed. “Your defiance is inefficient. His death funds water for fifty people. A fair exchange.”

The Harvesters peeled back Dax’s skin, revealing glistening viscera. Jessa retched.

“You’ll thank me,” Vorne said. “When you see the Oasis bloom.” His fingers brushed her cheek. “You think me a monster? I’m a gardener. And every garden needs compost.”

Part 6: The Escape

A tremor shook the bunker. Dust rained from the ceiling—the storm above, gnawing at the ruins. The Harvesters paused, their tools stuttering.

Jessa, still in a state of shock, reacted instinctvely.

She slammed her head into Vorne’s nose, feeling cartilage crunch. He stumbled, glasses flying from his face. The Harvesters turned, momentarily distracted.

Dax’s hand twitched on the table.

“Jess…,” he whispered, as blood bubbled on his lips. “Go…”

She grabbed a large flask filled with fluid, hurling it at a computer screen. The glass shattered, liquid splashing across circuitry. Sparks erupted and alarms blared.

“Fool!” Vorne clutched his bleeding nose.

Jessa dove through the bedlam, Harvesters rushing past her to contain the damage. Dax’s eye followed her until the end, dimming as she vanished into a ventilation shaft.

Jessa crawled for hours through the meandering metal vents, her knees bloodied from the effort. Exhausted and dying of thirst, she emerged to the surface at dawn. The Wastes were painted a sickly gold by the rising sun. The storm had passed, leaving dunes sculpted into razor-edged waves.

Her hands trembled as she unwound the blood-soaked bandage from her shoulder. The wound pulsed, veins branching black beneath her skin like ink spilled on wrinkled paper. The Thawed God’s mark, she thought. Her mother had whispered stories of it—a deity born from permafrost methane and corporate lies, demanding tribute in flesh. Jessa had laughed then. Now, the joke curdled in her throat.

A glint caught her eye: Dax’s Geiger counter, abandoned in the sand. She clutched it like a talisman. For a moment, she heard his voice—“We’ll make it to El Paso, Jess. Start over.”—and felt the ghost of his hand on her shoulder. But the wind stole the memory, replacing it with the buzz of an approaching PetroNova drone in the sky.

Part 7: The Calculus of Mercy

The drone circled lower, its shadow slicing across the dunes. She raised her revolver—empty, she remembered too late—as it hovered before her. She braced for gunfire, for poison gas, for the cold precision of PetroNova’s revenge. Instead, a package tumbled from its belly—a small metal crate. It was stamped with the PetroNova logo which gleamed mockingly in the light.

The drone ascended, its rotors whining like a swarm of locusts, until it dissolved into the bleached sky. Jessa stared at the crate for a minute, then pried it open with Dax’s Geiger counter. Inside: a syringe of neon-blue antidote, a canteen of water, and a note which read, “Survivors are our favorite investment. —V.” 

Vorne’s handwriting. She crumpled the message in her fist, but not before seeing the addendum: “P.S. The Mark has a 93% mortality rate. Clock’s ticking, little moth.”

She grabbed the canteen first. Its water tasted like forgiveness, like snowmelt, like Dax’s laugh. She drank until her stomach cramped. The antidote glowed, seductive. She plunged it into her thigh without hesitation. The cold rush made her gasp, the black veins receding like tide from shore. Relief was a knife—sharp, fleeting.

Investment. The word gnawed at her. Investments required returns. Data. PetroNova didn’t save lives; they manipulated and exploited them. This was a leash disguised as mercy. Corpses are raw material, but survivors—adaptive, resilient survivors—are a blueprint. A template for whatever the hell Vorne would be engineering next.

The Wastes stretched before her, endless and indifferent. El Paso lay somewhere beyond the dunes, a dream Dax had carved into her ribs. She could almost hear him, sardonic and steady: “You overthink, Jess. Just move.” But PetroNova didn’t chase—they herded. This antidote, this gift, was a collar.

She stood, dust covering her face. The sun climbed higher, bleaching the sky to a bone-white glare. They wanted her alive? Fine. But she’d burn their calculations to ash. If survival was the game, she’d play it viciously. She’d become a variable they couldn’t predict.