The checkpoint she'd tried earlier was likely flagged. The guards would've already logged the incident. Maybe not her name, but the interaction. Kynenn girl. No ID. And most of all, they'd seen her face.
The eastern gate crossed water. A bridge split the slums from the mid-sector trading docks, lined with checkpoints and toll logs. The boats were monitored. And if she tried to swim, the current would eat her—or at the very least, ruin the illusion she'd worked so hard to shape.
Too slow. Too risky.
She crouched low, chewing the inside of her cheek. Then looked west.
There was one more option.
She skirted the edge of Sector 3, tracing the broken walls and overgrown service lanes. The crowd got thinner the further south she went, until even the vendors thinned out, and the streets stopped pretending to be streets at all.
Eventually, she reached the southwestern border. The wall here looked the same as before—steel and stone, stacked and humming—but the checkpoint was smaller. Less formal.
Elara approached steadily, matching the posture of everyone she'd watched back at the real gate. One foot in front of the other. Calm. Casual. Like the ground belonged to her.
The guard looked up as she neared. Lazily. Like he didn't expect much from this job.
"What's someone like you doing this deep in the outer ring? You're damn near in the Wastelands."
Her heart kicked once—but she didn't blink.
He was younger than the last. Not by much, but enough to show it in the way he leaned, the way his boots weren't fully laced, and the way he smiled without checking her ID first.
Elara herself was attractive enough—thin, modestly curved, sharp-boned and narrow at the waist. Her hair was a pale silver-gold, tangled at the edges but pulled behind her shoulders. Her eyes were dark, soft, beautiful. She never thought much about how she looked.
But the guard did. She saw it in the pause. The way his eyes flicked over her once, then again.
He was flirting. Or trying to.
She kept her expression flat. "Just heading back in."
He raised a brow, but didn't question her further. He only gestured lazily to the inner gate behind him.
"Try not to get lost."
She nodded once, gave a courtesy smile, and kept walking.
The gate was just ahead—taller up close, with no clear handle.
No one had been manning it. Finally Elara was passed her trial. Relieved of the stress that came from strained nerves.
Just the same dark vertical split down the middle and a steel arch embedded with sensors. A panel sat to the right, faintly glowing.
She reached it. And was halted.For a moment, the whole world seemed to slow.
Nothing moved.
She stepped toward the door. The door had a scanner, the only way to open it.
The panel pulsed—red over and over.
Access required.
Elara froze.
Behind her, she heard the guard shift his weight. He stared her down the whole way back, shamelessly. "You alright?" he called out, voice less casual now.
She didn't turn. Her hand slid slowly to her satchel.
Then she pulled the badge.
Held it just long enough to be seen.
The panel flickered. Then buzzed.
Green light.
The doors unlatched with a subtle mechanical hiss, splitting down the center.
She stepped through without looking back.
A shuttle sat parked just past the second gate, its side panels unmarked, its front plate half-faded from weather. A few passengers were already inside—quiet, well-dressed, not paying her any attention.
Elara walked calmly across the platform and stepped on board. The driver didn't even lift his head. Just flicked a finger toward the back.
She found a seat in the center row, tucked close to the window, and let her body settle in.
No one looked twice.
She exhaled slowly, arms crossed tight over her satchel. The movement pulled her sleeves higher. She let them.
Her mind was still ticking. Elara had been fighting laughter at how lucky she'd been.
Back in the alley—when she rammed the guard, when they'd twisted and hit the dirt—her hands had been locked tight in front of her, fingers interlaced to look comforting. But the scuffle had brought her wrists flush to his waist, and she'd felt the leather. She didn't think much of the decision. She just took it. Kept the wallet wedged between her palms, masked by the cuffs.
She'd planned to use the money. That was it.
But when she reached the vendor's booth, the weight of it changed in her head. Kynenn didn't carry money. They didn't even belong on the street. Nothing about it made her look any less suspicious, and she couldn't afford to have the clerk calling the authorities.
So she kept it hidden. She assumed she couldn't use it.
Not until now—when the panel pulsed red, her stomach dropped. That was when she remembered the man at the first checkpoint. The overcoat. The flash of a card. The faint hiss beneath the floor.
Whatever he used, whatever permission the system required—it had come from some small form of ID. Probably in a wallet.
She took a chance. And the badge was there.
Her infiltration was the product of good guesswork. And earned luck.
Elara fought the smile completely. But her shoulders dropped a little. Her heartbeat slowed.
After a few more people arrived, the shuttle hissed and lurched into motion, cutting north through the divider wall towards the inner ring.
In passing the northwest gate, where she'd started this whole expedition, Elara kept her head down even more, but she noticed that even less guards manned the area now than when she first attempted to pass.
The foundation must be swarming with guards now
She leaned against the window and watched the buildings shift.
All that mattered was the fact that she was soon to be in.
After nearly an hour the shuttle slowed to a glide, tires whispering against polished stone. It didn't stop with a jolt, but a smooth deceleration that felt more like landing than braking. Elara felt the change before the vehicle halted fully—the pressure in the air lightened.
The inner ring didn't feel like another district. It felt like another world.
She kept her eyes low, posture stiff but neutral, one hand resting across her satchel, the other brushing the inside of her stolen coat. Her fingers grazed the edge of the badge—it was still warm. The fact that it had worked should've brought relief. It didn't. She was inside. But being inside only proved how little she understood about where to go next.
The doors hissed open.
Warm air rushed in—dry and scented, like someone had crushed citrus and metal together. Clean. Too clean. Not like a bath, but like a scrubbed wound.
She stepped out onto a wide promenade. The shuttle dock was small—no gates, no security post. Just polished benches and a floating info pillar with pulsing blue text. It reminded her more of the food queues from the outer sectors than a checkpoint.
No one stopped her. No one looked twice.
Elara stood still longer than she should've. Just listening. Observing. Then, slowly, she walked.
The street stretched in both directions, paved in smooth blackstone that drank in light. The lamps above it weren't like the flickering orange torch posts she was used to—they shone soft amber, diffused through glass panels arranged like folded wings. She kept her steps measured. She didn't change direction more than once every few blocks. She'd never been here, but she wasn't going to look lost.
But she was lost.
She scanned the buildings carefully. The architecture—curved glass, metal beams that disappeared into skybridges, and stacked homes with gardens suspended in air between floors. One balcony had a tree growing sideways out of it, its trunk threaded through an arch like a sculpture.
Elara turned a corner into a narrow plaza,
That's when she heard it.
A voice rang out—sharp, manic.
"I told you! I told all of you—they're all dead!! They're zombies!"