Kai stepped forward, his boots crunching against the cracked ground as he stared into the horizon of decay. The faint whir of the drone hovered at his shoulder, its presence both intrusive and oddly comforting, like a ghost that refused to leave him alone. He could feel the weight of the man's gaze, not through eyes but through words, carried by the metallic voice that seemed to seep from the machine.
"Can you tell me who you are?" Kai asked, his voice calm, sharp, the edge of a blade that hadn't been drawn yet.
There was a pause, the kind of silence that could swallow whole minutes, before the man responded. His tone was low, deliberate, with the weight of someone who had spent too much time thinking about the answer.
"I'm a soldier," the voice said, heavy with introspection. "A mercenary… was a mercenary. Like you… and not like you, in all the ways that matter."
Kai raised an eyebrow but said nothing, letting the man speak. This wasn't a conversation—it was a monologue, and he had no intention of interrupting it just yet.
"Spent too many years looking for you," the man continued, his words dragging as though each one carried a memory behind it. "Now letting you come to me. Thought the Continuation War would end you, no… you got lives in you. Hard to kill. Storms, bullets, sand, and wind—yet you still walk. For now."
Kai took another step forward, boots grinding against the rubble, the drone humming at his side like a persistent shadow. His gaze, as empty as ever, followed the faint buzzing of the machine, its presence an intrusion, but one he didn't mind. He tilted his head slightly, focusing on the voice emanating from it, wondering if the man speaking through it had anything worth saying.
"You were meant to be a soldier?" Kai asked, his tone flat, a simple statement rather than a question. The words held no curiosity—only an acknowledgement of the absurdity in them.
The voice came slowly, deliberate, carrying the weight of something far older than Kai cared to consider.
"Meant to?" the man replied, the bitterness in his voice sharper than any scorn. "No. Never. That's your burden. Weigh you down until death catches up… but you survived."
Kai's eyes remained unmoving, as still as the windless desert. He didn't need to respond—let the man speak. Let the words unravel.
"There was death in that suit," the voice continued, each word crawling, deliberate. "And while the suit matters to ghosts of the old world, no… you're more dangerous than the suit ever could be. That's why it called to you. That's why you found each other."
Kai stood motionless, his eyes scanning the barren wasteland around him, every detail etched in the harsh light of the dying sun. The voice from the drone was a constant presence, like the wind itself, carrying words that seemed to hang in the air long after they were spoken.
"So you've lured me here to set me up to die?" Kai's voice was flat, almost bored, but his mind was sharp, analyzing every syllable, every shift in the tone of the voice.
The drone's hum fluctuated slightly, the voice within it lowering, almost contemplative, like the speaker was watching something distant, something Kai couldn't see.
"We all have death following us," the man's voice rasped. "Only a question of how close. You dodged it... for a time. You're good at that. Talent for it. With your past weighing you down... a burden, lets death move a little faster without me pulling the trigger."
Kai didn't flinch, didn't move. His expression remained impassive, as always, as the weight of the words tried to sink in. My past or Mortifex's past? Kai thought, the internal question flickering in his mind like a shadow that couldn't quite take form.
Kai's eyes narrowed slightly, the only indication that the man's words had registered. His voice was measured, calm, but there was a sharpness in it, an edge that couldn't be ignored.
"If you wanted me dead, why did you wait?" Kai asked, his words hanging in the air like a challenge, but his posture remained completely still, as though he had already accepted whatever answer might come.
The drone hummed, a faint mechanical whirr filling the silence before the voice responded—low, deliberate, like a man who had long since accepted that time was a luxury he no longer had.
"Promises to keep," the voice replied, a hint of weariness creeping into the rasp. "To others. And the desert... the desert and wars are dangerous enough. Left to the land, the land has its way." There was a brief pause, as if the man was measuring the weight of his next words. "If I wanted you dead, we would've met sooner. But... not sure that's the way this ends."
Kai's gaze remained fixed on the horizon, unblinking, his expression as unreadable as ever. He hadn't moved an inch, but his mind churned with the implications of the man's words. There was something calculated in his response, a thoughtfulness that suggested more than just a mercenary's casual game of survival. There was history, something personal, hidden beneath it all.
The man's voice broke through the silence once more, his tone soft but still charged with meaning.
"Might be that history needs to have its say. If not, then... Messages will do."
Kai stood still, his head unwavering, as the wind shifted dust around him like the restless whispers of the dead. His voice cut through the stillness, calm and precise.
"But we've never spoken before, and I think I would remember you if you had a voice like that," he said, his words flat, devoid of any inflection. He watched the drone for a moment, the small machine buzzing quietly in response.
The voice from the drone, rough and low, did not falter. It was the same steady tone, but there was something deeper beneath it, a strange weight to the words, as though they carried a history far older than the moment they were in.
"Words aren't the only way mercenaries meet," the voice replied, as if the answer were obvious. "Sometimes it's the paths we walk. But no... we've never spoken before now." There was a slight pause, a flicker in the machine's response. "You may not know my voice, but we've walked the same places."
Kai's eyes narrowed, though his face remained as impassive as ever. He didn't move, didn't respond right away, but the questions buzzed in his mind, each one testing the edge of the conversation. "The Silk Road to the Americas?" he repeated, the words unfamiliar, but they sparked something in him—an echo, a shadow of something forgotten.
The voice continued, unbothered by the silence. "That wasn't the only road you ever walked. I've been to your home, the place you kept returning to… may not be the place you were born, but it was the place you gave life to. Same thing."
Kai's thoughts flickered, a single, sharp memory pricking his mind like a thorn. Does he know about the room? Or is he talking about a previous Mortifex? The questions slipped in, quiet, almost unnoticed, but there they lingered, unspoken. The weight of them was not lost on him.
The voice didn't wait for a reply, continuing its monologue, as if it had already seen the cracks in Kai's expression, the subtle shift in his demeanor.
"People forget mercenaries," the voice rasped, almost philosophical in its tone. "Soldiers keep communities alive until the day they're gone, and their breath catches in their throat."
Kai stood still, the wind shifting dust around him as the faint hum of the drone lingered in the air. He didn't look at it, his gaze locked on the horizon, a place far beyond the ruins of the city. His voice, when it came, was steady, almost flat.
"Why didn't you kill the other Mortifex's... kill me... before they got the suit... the symbol?" Kai's question cut through the stillness, each word deliberate, as though he had already considered every possible answer.
The voice from the drone seemed to weigh his words, the rasp in its tone almost thoughtful.
"No… no, I couldn't," the man replied, his voice lingering in the air like the taste of something bitter. "And I'm thinking you can't kill me either. If you did, you'd answer for it. Just as I would." The voice grew quieter, almost conspiratorial. "Let the land do the killing for you, that's one of the things you taught me. Killing is personal... so's vows... promises. Last bit more important to me than the first."
Kai didn't respond right away. He let the silence stretch between them, the weight of the words hanging in the air like a tension that had yet to snap. His eyes remained fixed on the horizon, but his thoughts shifted, processing, calculating.
"So you talk about killing me, but swore not to kill me?" Kai's voice was unchanging, the edge of his tone barely perceptible. "Why?"
The drone's hum seemed to deepen, as if the man was considering the question carefully.
"What kind of world would this be if mercenaries killed mercenaries?" the voice asked, the words slow, deliberate. "You've got enough distance ahead of you. Save your breath for the roads, don't waste it on words."
Kai's eyes flickered for a moment, just the smallest sign of recognition. But it was gone before it could mean anything.
His device sparked to life in his hand, the small screen lighting up with data. The drone hummed again, as if acknowledging the shift in focus.
"Have you found the weapon yet?" the voice asked, the tone turning more purposeful now, less philosophical.
"No," Kai answered, the lie coming smoothly, effortlessly. He didn't need to look at the device to know what he was doing. His gaze was still fixed, unwavering. "Was there any reports of any kind of name in the files you got to find the weapons here?"
The voice on the other end was quieter for a moment, the hum of the drone fading slightly as it processed the question.
"Hm... there was one name that kept popping up. Alexander," the voice said, the name carrying an odd weight, as if it were more than just a word.
"Got it," Kai responded, his tone clipped, cutting off the conversation before it could drag on.
He turned off his device, slipping it back into his coat, and for a moment, the silence between them seemed to deepen. The drone remained hovering by his side, its presence a constant, mechanical buzz.
"So you're the one who orchestrated this all... Alexander?" Kai's voice was flat, his eyes narrowing slightly as he turned his gaze toward the drone.
The man's voice came again, calmer now, almost reflective.
"Not my given name. Close enough," the voice replied, the rasp more pronounced now. "Took it from history. Found it in a book. Old world name. Alexander lived a long time ago, long before the old world set fire to itself. He made a mark without being myth. Had to fight during a time when his world was split and he had to make them one."
Kai's gaze shifted, a flicker of something unreadable in his expression. "What is this old world?" he asked, the words sharp, but there was an undercurrent of curiosity that seemed almost out of place.
The man's voice came again, more somber this time, as if Kai had asked a question that had not been asked in a long time.
"The world before you destroyed it," the voice said quietly, the rasp almost wistful. "Before everything burned to ash and dust. Before the old world set fire to itself, trying to fix what was broken. There were still things worth saving back then. People who thought they could rebuild. But now?" The voice seemed to pause, as if considering the answer carefully. "Now it's all just a memory. A ghost."
Kai walked forward, each step measured and steady, the drone's hum keeping pace beside him. He didn't look at it, but he could feel Alexander's presence as though it were a weight pressing down on the air around him. His thoughts shifted, calculations running silently in the background.
"So you chose the name Alexander because of someone wanting to conquer?" Kai asked, his voice flat, without inflection. "Is that tied to the current and past war?"
The drone's hum deepened, almost as if the question had made Alexander pause. The silence stretched, and then the voice came, slow, deliberate, tinged with a kind of tired conviction.
"War. Call it that. Our part in it," Alexander said, his voice rough, like the scrape of metal on stone. "Alexander wasn't made for the flag he followed. He wasn't made for peace. That's the lesson."
Kai's lips didn't twitch, but he processed the words as they came. He was used to listening, used to weighing things, the way a person might weigh a tool before deciding its usefulness. But there was something in Alexander's words that hinted at a deeper frustration. He didn't rush to answer; instead, he let the silence build, the wind howling across the barren landscape.
"If you follow a symbol to the end," Alexander continued, his voice taking on a more reflective edge, "ask yourself what that means. More important, ask what happens after the end."
"Alexander. Not the myth. You're honoring history… not stories then."
The drone hummed, a slight rasp of static before the voice, heavy with reflection, cut through the air. "History. Yes. Alexander walked a hard road. A general, like Caesar and Napoleon. Mule-stubborn. Gave him strength in battle, sure. But that's the thing about strength—it doesn't last forever. He led his side to victory, turned every flag into one, but when the fighting was over, when the banners were lowered and the bloodstains dried, that's when he lost. Not to another man, but to sickness."
Kai had been scanning, calculating, observing the landscape for some time now, but something about this place had remained elusive—something in the air, or perhaps in the echoes of the past. He shifted his gaze to the distant horizon, where ruined structures clawed at the sky, their skeletal remains stark against the dark clouds swirling overhead.
"What is this place exactly?" Kai asked, his voice flat, but the question lingered in the stillness of the air like a challenge.
The drone hummed beside him, its mechanical voice responding slowly, almost reverentially. "The Divide... this place is a slice of it. Old military. You can still smell the pride... and the fear. Hope of the old world wrapped in fencing, covered in storm. You're standing on ground that used to be held by men who thought their war would make them legends. But time… time has a way of taking that away."
Kai paused, eyes narrowing as he scanned the horizon, his thoughts processing what Alexander had said. The Divide. It wasn't a name that offered clarity. But the imagery—the remnants of a past war, the ghostly presence of forgotten soldiers, the weight of failure lingering in the air—it all fit. This was no mere wasteland. This was a place where something significant had once been, where lives had been lost, and where survival had meant something entirely different.
"And now?" Kai's voice was cool, his curiosity colder than the wind whipping through the ruins. "What's left here, besides ghosts?"
The drone's hum deepened, a slight shift in tone as it processed the question. "New inhabitants. More recent. Recruits. Some are remnants of the old wars, others are just... people. Looking for something that might not exist. But you don't need to worry about them. Not yet."
Kai continued forward, his mind processing the new information as he absorbed Alexander's words. The drone buzzed next to him, a constant companion in this empty land, but its hum didn't fill the space like it once did. The air felt heavier now, each word Alexander spoke adding weight to the silence.
"Yeah, but the land looks like it was hit by some type of earthquake… or underground detonations," Kai observed, his voice as measured as ever.
There was a pause, the silence stretched before Alexander responded, his voice layered with history and something darker.
"Kurdistan sleeps in the Divide… giants, beneath the earth." The words seemed to carry an ancient weight, like the land itself was alive, breathing beneath the shattered ruins. "You saw the one in the silo beneath you. There's more."
Kai's expression didn't shift, but internally, the word more triggered a series of calculations, a series of questions. The silence between them wasn't awkward. It was loaded with implications.
"More?" Kai asked, his voice unwavering.
"Only takes a few of them, locked away below ground, to tear apart the earth… and cast dust, sand… ash... into the skies above," Alexander explained, as though he were recounting a long-forgotten myth. "You'll see the extent… the miles of it, soon enough. You need to see it... walk it."
Kai absorbed the weight of those words, calculating. The ruins weren't just the remains of a shattered world; they were the scar tissue of something far more dangerous. The mention of giants beneath the earth... it wasn't just metaphor. It felt like a warning. Something had been buried here, kept hidden for a reason.
The air grew thick, almost as if the land itself was holding its breath. Kai didn't need to ask any more questions. Alexander had already given him the pieces of a puzzle that no one had been meant to solve. Kai knew the Divide was a place to be feared, but now it felt like more than just a graveyard of the old world—it felt like a place with a pulse.
Kai glanced down at the desolate expanse below, scanning the ruin with a sharp, unblinking gaze. The streets stretched out beneath him, abandoned and decayed, where once there had been life and purpose.
"For now, eyes alert. Watch the streets below," Alexander's voice crackled through the drone, his tone deliberate and thick with something heavy, like he was measuring each word. "There's still life in the Divide, threats beyond storms and wind. New inhabitants."
Kai paused, his mind calculating the implications of the statement. He let the silence stretch just long enough before responding, his voice calm, cutting through the air like a blade. "Inhabitants? It doesn't look like anyone's alive down there."
"Not alive as you know it," Alexander responded, his voice almost contemplative. "These new inhabitants... not natives. Most came with duty. With purpose. Ready to kill each other. The Divide was stronger than they expected, though. It left its mark on them, too. Not with swords, not with the crescent... but with something else. Something more corrosive."
Kai's gaze narrowed, his eyes flicking from shadow to shadow below. "What are you saying? They've been changed?"
"Radiation," Alexander continued, his tone darkening. "It marked them. Made them equal in history's eyes. In the eyes of the world that was. These aren't just soldiers anymore. They've been forged by this place—by the storms, by the land. What they were before, what they could have been, it doesn't matter now. They're shadows. Shadows of Iran, of Iraq... silhouettes of things to come."
Kai's eyes remained fixed on the empty expanse below, the ruin stretching out in front of him. His thoughts continued to churn as the words hung in the air, heavier than the dust settling over the forgotten streets.
"Then that body I saw in the silo was a soldier," Kai stated flatly, his tone unchanging, though a subtle edge of curiosity bled through.
"Might have been. Once." Alexander's voice was thick with an old, bitter weight, like a man who had seen too much to believe in the simplicity of past identities. "To the Divide they came… In the Divide they rest. If you saw their corpses, you saw mercy."
Kai didn't respond immediately, letting the words settle between them. The wind stirred the dust in patterns, but his mind was elsewhere, running through the implications of what Alexander had just said.
"They got what they deserved?" Kai asked, his voice as cold and calculating as ever, even as the question held a sharp edge.
"Aye," Alexander responded, a gravelly note to his words. "Coming to the Divide wasn't just a journey. It was a sentence. A grave already waiting for them before they set foot in this place. The sword and the crescent, Iran, Iraq, they came in waves. Before... and after."
Kai's eyes narrowed at the mention of the symbols, the weight of history pulling at him. "What did that mean for them?" he asked, more to himself than to Alexander.
"They marched under different flags," Alexander continued, as if he was recounting a tale too old to matter anymore, but still painful to tell. "But in the end, they were equal. Equal in their hatred of trespassers. You and I."
"Yeah, but I've never seen corpses that look like that," Kai said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he replayed the image of the body he'd seen in the silo. Something about it didn't sit right, like the unnaturalness of the remains was almost… alive in itself.
Alexander's voice came back, low and almost haunting. "Even if the fires here burn them from within… the winds of the Divide tore their skin, exposed them... screaming… to the sky."
Kai's gaze never faltered, though the image lingered at the edge of his mind. The descriptions that Alexander painted felt almost too visceral, too real. But it was the next part that stuck.
"And just as the Divide tears at them, so they tear at each other," Alexander continued, his voice a rasp like sand scraping against stone. "For sport. Like some tribal sacrifice. Falling back on their history, maybe. No matter what they suffer… the radiation, the fire of the Divide… it sustains them. Makes them stronger."
Kai stood still, his fingers brushing against his gear, but his mind was far from the devices he maintained. His thoughts turned inward, sifting through the layers of what Alexander had just laid out before him. The Divide. The sickness that had taken root in these survivors. The fire, the wind, the radiation.
"Radiation may keep them alive in areas so physically punishing it would kill anybody else," Kai said, his voice calm, detached, as always. He wasn't surprised. He'd seen enough to understand the effect the land had on those who lived in it, twisted by time, pain, and radiation. He rubbed his fingers over his wrist, where a burn from the divide still tingled faintly.
"There's truth in your words," Alexander's voice crackled through the drone, though there was a venom in it now. Hatred. "In what I've seen of their tactics, their movements... their recovery. Those wounds... couldn't live otherwise. The winds of the Divide have torn the skin from many of them. Couldn't be anything else but the radiation keeping them walking. You've seen it. How they move. How they survive."
Kai remained silent, considering. He had seen enough of the Divide to know that it was a place that didn't just kill. It transformed. It didn't care for history or pain. It simply took what it wanted. And it left the rest as husks, walking and breathing and carrying the weight of a dead world.
"The Divide doesn't make anything easy," Kai said, his voice even, almost clinical. "And those things? They aren't human anymore. Not in any sense we'd recognize."
Alexander's voice turned bitter. "Make camp near the silos… the warheads. No way to cleanse the radiation. It makes them harder to kill there. You'll have to draw them out, bait them. These things, they know the land. They've learned it. And they've learned how to use it."
Kai's fingers twitched, a reflex he couldn't fully suppress. He glanced toward the horizon, where the ruined landscape of the Divide stretched out, the sun swallowed by the haze of dust and ash. This place didn't forgive. Didn't let you rest.
"The robot with you..." Alexander's voice took on a new edge, a spitting venom. "Machines. All of them. Radios. Old World tech reshaped with new hands. Historians. Soldiers. Carrying messages. And those messages... they still matter. Still echo, even in this dead land."
Kai's eyes narrowed, but his expression remained unchanged. "You have an issue with the tech?" he asked, his tone almost teasing, but there was no warmth in it. Only calculation.
Alexander's response was a sneer in his voice. "Seen them as I walked the Divide, tending to other machines. The one you've got? Sealed in the Marvarian silo. You think that's a coincidence? No. It's a sign. Kurdistan's waking up. And it's going to follow you. Obey you. Until you're face to face with me. Then, there'll be no need for it to carry my words anymore."
Kai stopped for a moment, his gaze lingering on the cracked and crumbling remnants of the land before him. The wind howled, carrying with it the harsh scent of dust and radiation, but it didn't touch him—not the way it touched the broken bodies that littered the Divide. He turned his head slightly, as if he could feel Alexander's presence at his back, the weight of his words heavy in the air.
"There is one more thing I want to ask you," Kai said, his voice as steady and emotionless as always, but the words seemed to hang in the air longer than usual. "If we share history... before going forward, I want to know the past."
A sharp, cold laugh crackled through the drone, the sound low and bitter. "Who are you who do not know your history?" Alexander's voice dripped with derision, like a man who had long ago stopped caring for questions that didn't serve him. "You've come all this way for answers... only currency I have…You could turn around and walk away any time. What makes you think you deserve what I've earned?"
Kai's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Alexander's cryptic tone only confirmed what Kai already knew—he wasn't about to be handed anything freely. Not even information. It would be earned. The cost would always be something, and the Divide had its own method of collecting.
"If history matters to you," Alexander continued, his voice cold and distant now, "you'll have to earn it. You think any log of mine still exists? I've cast them all away in the Divide. The sands and winds of this place swallowed them. They're lost to you."
Kai absorbed the words with an unreadable expression. History. It was always the most expensive thing to learn, wasn't it? The ghosts of the past always came with a price, and Alexander was no exception. Kai had been prepared for this. Always prepared. Answers weren't a currency that came without cost, and nothing here was as simple as it seemed.
"I didn't come for answers." Kai's voice was soft, but his words cut through the silence between them. "Not the way you think. But if I'm to keep moving... I need something to work with. Something to keep me alive."
There was a pause, the sound of the wind filling the gap, before Alexander spoke again, more carefully this time. "You'll need to keep your focus, Mortifex. There's a reason you came here. And it isn't for the stories of old men. The past is already dead. It doesn't need you to remember it. What you need is the tools to survive."
Kai's gaze flicked toward the distant, forgotten silos in the ruins. "Tools. Like the warheads?"
"Exactly," Alexander said, his tone now a mix of something almost approving, though it was laced with a sharp edge. "The silos hold the keys, but they are not unlocked by words or memories. They're triggered by something far more... immediate. The warheads? They'll keep you moving. They'll keep you alive—for now."
Kai paused again, his mind working through the layers of meaning behind Alexander's words. For now was the key. The future was never promised in a place like this, and survival always came with a cost. But if Alexander was right, these warheads were something Kai could use. Weapons, power... control.
"How do I find them?" Kai asked, his voice a steady rhythm against the crackling hum of the drone.
"Follow the signs," Alexander replied, a hint of finality in his words. "The Divide doesn't leave things behind without reason. If you're smart, you'll find the triggers. But be warned, the land doesn't make it easy. If the Divide wants you dead, it will take its toll. The warheads are just the start."
Kai exhaled, the air heavy with the scent of sulfur and ash. He wasn't expecting an easy path, nor would he have taken one if it had been offered. The Divide had never been kind, and it wasn't going to start now.
"I'll find them," Kai said, his voice quiet but firm. His eyes never wavered from the path ahead, as if the Divide itself could feel the intensity of his focus. "But history? I'll earn it on my terms."
Alexander's voice hummed in the background, almost like an afterthought now, "As long as you remember, Mortifex... history is a hard thing to forget. Especially when it's still breathing down your neck."
Kai nodded silently.
"An ending. To this road, you and I. First, you need to find your way. At the end I'll be waiting,