"Before you is the edge of the Divide," Alexander said, his voice steady and resolute, echoing through the cavern as if the very stones were listening. "Ahead lies your work, the history you burned into the earth, what you brought to the people here."
Kai stopped, his eyes narrowing as he took in the desolation ahead. The tilted building loomed above him like a monument to something long forgotten. Dust storms churned in the distance, carrying the weight of a past he hadn't lived but somehow felt tethered to.
"What happened here?" Kai asked, his voice even, betraying no emotion.
"You delivered a package. Had markings that matched those in the Divide," Alexander said, his voice calm, yet laced with an undercurrent of something heavier—judgment, perhaps, or regret. "Not all the same... but enough. Military markings, from some place Sword had salvaged in the west. Maybe seeing those markings on it reminded you of home… made you carry it."
Kai stopped mid-step, his gaze steady, focused on the drone hovering just ahead of him. "What if I don't recall it?" he asked, his tone neutral, carefully devoid of defensiveness or curiosity.
"It was from the West. From deep in Iran," Alexander said, his voice deliberate, like he was recounting a tale he'd told a hundred times but still felt the weight of. "Whether made by them or not… it came here. Through your hands. It was a device, a detonator. One I'd never seen before… or heard before. You carried that thing into the Divide. I know because I followed you as you walked the road, watched you do it."
Kai stood still, his eyes fixed on the drone. Each word carried the weight of accusation, but his expression betrayed nothing.
"You brought it here, to the community you built," Alexander continued. "And you are responsible for what happened after… when the device opened, started to speak. When it did, the Divide answered back."
"The missiles," Kai murmured, his voice calm but edged with understanding.
"Those missiles you've seen, buried in their silos. They exploded beneath the ground, cracked the landscape. Sand, ash… the dead… the Divide's skies became a graveyard."
Kai's gaze didn't waver, but his next question was sharp, cutting through Alexander's monologue. "If you saw it happen, then you were there. How did you survive?"
There was a pause, the faint hum of the drone filling the silence as if it, too, hesitated to answer. Finally, Alexander's voice returned, quieter, almost introspective.
"Should've died there," Alexander began, his tone almost reflective, tinged with bitterness. "But now that I know you lived… it all falls into place. The machines here… they saved me. I was the only survivor—or thought I was."
Kai's steps slowed, the weight of Alexander's words pressing against the otherwise quiet atmosphere of the Divide. He didn't look back at the drone but kept his attention on the path ahead, his expression as unreadable as ever.
"Your package," Alexander continued, his voice hardening with each syllable, "the message inside it… awoke something. Medical machines. Close to the one that shadows you now. They began to build themselves, then others. They scavenged the Divide like vultures, taking what parts they could find. Never roaming beyond this place. Can't even leave the silos without a human to shadow, like hounds without a master."
Kai glanced briefly at the hovering drone beside him, its metallic form reflecting the faint light. His gaze returned to the path as he spoke, his voice calm but probing. "And they chose you?"
"Maybe," Alexander admitted. "Maybe it was the flag on my jacket. Macedonia's colors, its history. They might've thought I was one of them…or something close enough. If so… history saved me."
He paused, the drone's hum filling the space between them. Then Alexander added, almost as if speaking to himself, "A sign."
"Then this is all revenge for me nearly killing you?" Kai asked.
"Not the name I'd give it. Not the name the dead would give it," Alexander said, his voice resonating through the drone like a ghost carried by the wind. "Soldiers of the Sword died here…Iraq died, too. My brothers. Still dying, both of them, all around us. None of the people that lived here survived."
Kai's gaze flickered over the ruins ahead—fractured buildings, scorched earth, and the skeletal remains of what was once a thriving community. The weight of Alexander's words hung heavy in the desolate air.
"Yet all of the West and the East," Alexander continued, his tone growing colder, "they hold onto the Divide as it tears at them. Clinging to it, like an open wound they refuse to let heal."
The wind picked up, carrying with it the faint scent of ash and the metallic tang of decay. Kai remained still, his expression unreadable, though his fingers briefly brushed the strap of his rifle.
"Revenge isn't the message I have for you, Mortifex," Alexander said, his voice dropping, quieter now but no less intense. "More than that…much more."
"What was inside this package that Mortifex carried?" Kai asked, his tone steady but edged with curiosity.
"Machinery," Alexander replied through the drone, his voice carrying a hint of bitterness, like a man recounting a painful memory. "Simple on the outside. Looked like computer parts—harmless. Something you might find discarded in any ruin from Tehran to Baghdad."
Kai frowned slightly, his eyes narrowing. "And inside?"
"Inside…" Alexander paused, as if the memory was something he needed to sift through. "Inside was more complicated" The wind whistled through the cracks in the ruins around them, adding an eerie undercurrent to the conversation.
"It was the only time I heard a machine speak in the Divide," Alexander continued, his tone quieter now, almost reverent.
"Why would he have brought it here?" Kai's question was calm, deliberate, but it carried an edge, like a blade just shy of being unsheathed. His eyes, sharp and calculating, locked onto the drone as though staring through Alexander's presence.
The voice that came through the drone was steady, roughened by wear, yet unwavering in its conviction. "I've walked the East. You've walked the West, more than I have," Alexander began, his tone carrying the weight of miles traveled and histories endured. Each place he named seemed to hang in the air, tangible in its significance.
"Chark-e Quabaz," he said, drawing out the name as if reliving the dust and desolation of its streets. "Nabardgah… Sepandshahr." There was something almost reverent in how he spoke of these places, as though they were monuments, scarred but enduring.
Kai stood motionless, but there was a faint flicker in his gaze—a hint that the names struck a chord, however muted.
Alexander pressed on, relentless. "Word of you at Fort Aradesh… Fort Arge Mandar." His words seemed to burrow into the silence between them, probing for cracks. "Even further west than that, where the land twists into harsher shapes, past the borders where even maps falter. Goat drives on Big Circle, where the winds howl like ghosts over the ridges."
Kai's face remained impassive, but his fingers twitched slightly at his side, a subconscious reaction he quickly stilled.
"Whatever you saw out there…" Alexander continued, his voice darkening with a note of accusation, "it wasn't enough to make you stay. Not enough to anchor you."
The words settled heavily in the air, mixing with the faint sound of the wind stirring dust across the broken ground.
"Maybe the markings on the package reminded you of the road home," Alexander added after a pause.
"How could Mortifex have known what was in the package? Did he make it?" Kai's voice was steady, the undercurrent of curiosity wrapped in his usual measured detachment. His eyes never left the drone, as though willing Alexander's presence to emerge more tangibly from the machine's artificial frame.
"If you had been there when it happened…" Alexander began, his tone dipping into something both accusatory and almost mournful. The drone hovered closer, its mechanical whirring the only sound in the oppressive silence of the Divide. "If you had seen the Divide break, you would know it."
The words carried the weight of certainty, a truth Alexander believed carved into the land itself.
"You carry death wherever you go," he continued, the sentence hanging like a knife in the air. "If the desert doesn't know it yet, it will. The Divide has long memories, longer than mine or yours."
Kai remained still, his expression unreadable, but his fingers unconsciously brushed against the worn fabric of his gloves, a subtle movement betraying the smallest crack in his composure.
"What happened here…" Alexander's voice grew heavier, more deliberate, "can happen again. You've already proved it, Mortifex. What you did in Marvarian. The silo there."
"I didn't intend to set that missile off," Kai said, his tone calm but with an edge of quiet defiance.
The drone hovered slightly closer, its lens tilting as though Alexander were scrutinizing him from afar. "Didn't stop you, though," Alexander replied, his voice carrying that rough, accusing undertone that seemed to pierce through Kai's composed facade.
"Like bringing the army to Marvarian," he continued, each word carefully measured, laced with an almost bitter certainty. "Old world death in your hand." The drone's shadow shifted slightly on the cracked ground, an ominous reflection of the weight of his words.
Kai's gaze didn't waver. He stood firm, his silence pressing Alexander to continue.
"Pieces of the old world like that," Alexander said, his tone darkening further, "just need something careless enough to take them where they need to go, to do their killing."
The words struck like a hammer, but Kai's expression remained stoic, his eyes narrowing slightly as if to study Alexander's meaning more closely.
"I don't think I'm to blame for any of this," Kai said, his voice calm yet laced with a quiet firmness.
The drone tilted slightly, the faint mechanical whir like an exhale of disbelief. Alexander's reply came swiftly, his tone sharp and unyielding. "All these roads you walked. These packages you carried. Think it wasn't your choice?" There was a pause, a heavy silence that seemed to stretch between them like the vast expanse of the Divide itself. "Of course, it was your choice."
Kai's expression remained calm, but his hands curled slightly at his sides, the faintest sign of tension creeping into his otherwise detached demeanor.
"You could've stayed in Iran," Alexander continued, the accusation in his voice as cutting as the Divide's winds. "But you chose to come. Couldn't let it be...not in you to let go."
The drone hovered closer, its lens locking onto Kai as though Alexander's gaze bore straight through him. "Came for no other reason than you were curious, restless...always have been. Had to know the why of it."
Kai's silence was deliberate, his eyes narrowing as he processed the words. He didn't flinch, didn't look away, but the weight of Alexander's statement settled heavily around him.
"I think you're the one who needs to answer that," Kai said, his tone unwavering, though a flicker of tension cut through his measured demeanor. "You brought me here. Manipulated people to get me here."
"Want to hear the answer of it," Alexander replied, his voice rumbling with purpose. "Not just history's answer… your answer for what happened here."
"Are you angry because Mortifex stopped Iraq's plans? Pretty sure that was an accident of sorts," Kai asked, the faintest hint of skepticism coloring his words.
"Accident?" Alexander's voice darkened, carrying a weight that seemed to press down on the air. "Ignorance is a choice. The missiles… a choice. As for anger… it's what I carry for the dead, and all that come here."
"The dead? You mean the Iranian troops who were here?" Kai asked, his voice calm, though his gaze sharpened as he probed further.
"The soldiers of the Sword?" Alexander's voice carried an edge of disdain, the words cutting like a blade. "They were dead already, their symbol… diseased. Deserved to die as my brothers did at Sangshahr City—mines, bombs. Their fate was sealed long before the divide broke."
He paused, the silence lingering like the stillness before a storm. "I carry nothing for them. Their deaths were a mercy… compared to the ones that still walk the divide."