The Price of Water (A Babushka Short Story)

Lev, a former doctor, navigates the Kyzylkum desert while haunted by the memory of his family and a past tied to a powerful AI.

Lev was no longer a doctor. He was an exile, a scavenger who had barely made it out of the Kyzylkum Desert with his life. The ruddy dunes had tried to swallow him whole, and he could still feel the sand lodged in his throat, the grit scraping with every swallow.

When he made it to Navoi, he hadn’t expected it to be so populated—everything west of Tehran had been an irradiated wasteland, and if that was anything to go by, he was only glad he hadn’t taken the straight shot through Ukraine. At one point, passing through Gaziantep, he had felt the fleeting desire to travel south—south to Cairo, to the jacaranda trees that lined his mother’s house.

His family had lived in a modest mudbrick home on the outskirts of Giza, near the village of Abu Sir, its beige walls blending seamlessly with the dunes behind it, the wooden door painted a bright blue. To Lev, that door had always felt like a promise—a portal to someplace beyond the desert’s edge, a world he had waited for but never found.

His father, a Russian physicist, had come to Egypt years ago to study cosmic rays at the Kottamia Observatory. The desert’s vast, clear skies and low electromagnetic interference made it an ideal location for the work. But it wasn’t the science that bound him to this place—it was the desert itself, a love that deepened until it seemed to consume him.

Viktor Rozhkov had fallen for its stark beauty and the stillness that demanded everything else fall away. Talia Sfar and her family had welcomed him with open arms, perhaps sensing in him a man who had learned to live apart. They saw how he carried the weight of his own silences, how he seemed drawn to the isolation they, too, had long understood. To them, he was no stranger, but someone who had found, in their company, a solitude that mirrored his own.

Cigarette in hand, warm kitchen air spilling out behind him: Lev could picture his father crouching nearby, pointing up at the stars. “See Perseus there, just his sword arm creeping over the horizon?” he’d say. “Even heroes have to wait their turn.” Lev could still see the ember glowing faintly as his father took another slow drag. “Son, the desert’s patient. No sense rushing what’ll come in its own time.” And for a moment, Lev had believed him.

But as the years passed, the patience his father praised began to feel suffocating. The stillness of the desert grew heavy, its vast quiet pressing against him until it felt more like a prison than a refuge. He longed for movement, for noise, for the sense that life was happening all around him. Cairo’s streets had promised that and more—purpose, momentum, something to break the monotony. He had left as soon as he could, craving the chaos and the possibilities that came with it.

Later, miles and years away, Lev wondered if he could return. If, by some miracle, Cairo had survived. But the thought faded as quickly as it came, washed away by the endless kilometers stretching before him.

What he first thought (and had hoped) were artificial constructs—like the towering infrastructure in Praxis, unmistakable signs of an AI resurgence—had instead been towering sheets of glass, endless, as tall as mountains. He had cried then, realizing that whatever was left of his home was buried under an ocean of a different kind of sand. Whatever remained of Cairo, he knew, was lost.

It struck him then, bitterly, how much of his work at Cairo University had revolved around survival. During the Oros Initiative—a grant-funded project studying extremophiles, organisms capable of thriving in Earth’s harshest environments—he’d focused on resilience, not just of individuals but of entire networks under pressure.

He’d run countless simulations, trying to uncover any patterns in how these organisms thrived in the Tyrrhenian Back-Arc, where deep-sea hydrothermal vents spewed superheated water, and in the saline lakes scattered across Arabia. Could those same patterns, he had wondered, be applied to humans? Could we, too, evolve under duress, adapt to a world that was falling apart?

Back then, it had felt like optimism—like there was a way forward, if they could only figure out the right equations.

But now, standing on the edge of a world broken beyond recognition, he couldn’t help but question if that hope had been misplaced. There were no models for this. No formulae to calculate the kind of resilience humanity would need to survive what was coming.

Navoi, it turned out, was still rich in gold, uranium, and phosphates—resources that, in a dying world, were worth a fortune. It took all of a minute from the moment the small city appeared on the horizon for a band of men on makeshift rovers and motorcycles to spot him. They detained him, took his vehicle, and at the end of a rifle barrel, they forced him to praise Allah before casting him into the desert.

The men had mocked his Jewish faith, forcing him to act out what they called ‘the repentance of the One his own people forsook,’—Jesus. He could still hear their laughter on the wind, carried between gusts of dust devils, as he was shoved into the endless sands with nothing but a sack of what they allowed him to keep.

No food. They’d confiscated that. But they left him some water, enough for a few days if he rationed it carefully, a few battered batteries, and a blanket—thin, fraying at the edges, barely enough to keep him warm through the desert’s frigid nights. They’d tossed his sack back to him, unaware that a few of the trinkets they thought useless might still come in handy.

Lev felt a small wave of relief then—it wasn’t a GPS, but it would give him a fighting chance. They’d also left him a flint and steel, something to build a fire with, though the irony wasn’t lost on him—there was no wood in the Kyzylkum. If he was lucky, they’d said, he might catch a few gerbils or tortoises. Maybe he’d find some sandgrouse eggs. Ants, if nothing else.

For seven early mornings and seven long nights, Lev had walked. Walked until the soles of his feet were raw and bleeding, his leather boots shredded by the biting sands.

He felt the stages of decline with grim precision, each step reinforcing what he already knew too well: how dehydration would set in long before starvation, how his organs would start failing without water to maintain cellular function. His mouth was dry, his skin cracked, and he could feel the dizziness from electrolyte imbalance.

It was a cold, detached awareness—like the lectures he had once given to medical students on renal failure. But this time, it wasn’t theory. His own body was the subject, and no matter how much he tried to keep the analysis clinical, each cramp, each faltering step, was a visceral reminder that this wasn’t something he could escape by walking away from the lecture hall.

As he staggered over the shifting dunes, his mind drifted in and out of focus. The only thought that anchored him, that had carried him this far, was Alima. He hadn’t let himself think of her in the months since he left Praxis, forcing her image into the dark corners of his mind, where the tragedy of her short life couldn’t paralyze him.

But in that endless stretch of sand and sky, her face was all he saw—the way her dark curls framed her cheeks, the soft, shy smile she gave him when no one else was watching.

He thought of Sara, his wife, whose laughter used to fill their small flat in Maadi. He recalled how the evening sun cast golden hues through the ornate mashrabiya screens of their balcony, patterns of light dancing across the walls—like cellular automata, multiplying and shifting with every change in the breeze.

Sara would wait for him there after work, a cup of deep red karkade tea in her hands, the liquid catching the sunset like molten rubies, her eyes beaming as he approached. She’d tease him about the ink smudges on his sleeves, gently brushing them away while listening to his excited ramblings about the day’s experiments.

In those moments, the world outside faded, and her quiet presence made all the uncertainties disappear.

Losing Sara during Alima’s birth had shattered him, and just when he thought he couldn’t break any more, losing Alima a few years later destroyed what little remained. She had been the constant trace of the love he had gained and the loss he carried.

After she was gone, her memory clung to him like an echo of everything taken. He hadn’t let himself face the grief—not fully—too afraid of what might happen if he looked too closely at the abyss it had created.

He had tried to bury it in his work, but it wasn’t until Babushka had promised to resurrect her—as if she were Yahweh and her code the Techiyat Ha-Metim—that he realized how deeply he’d been clinging to that impossible hope.

His daughter would have been nineteen by now. Would she have forgiven him for leaving Praxis? For chasing vengeance against a machine god instead of staying to rebuild? Would Sara have understood, or would she have scolded him for letting Alima’s memory consume him?

Each step forward had felt like penance, the burn in his legs and lungs a constant proof of how he had once hoped to bring her back—to undo what had been taken from them both. But she was gone, and chasing ghosts across endless deserts was all he had left.

That thought, more than the distance, more than the heat, more than the cold, left him hollow. His bones ached. His body wasted away with each passing hour. He wondered if any animal, stumbling upon his corpse, would find no marrow left to chew. By the end, he had become so emaciated that he scarcely recognized the phantom of a man reflected in the muted surface of his dead reckoning device.

If not for that device, which his robbers had dismissed as a worthless relic, he’d never have made it to Samarkand. Its gyroscope had been the only thing that kept him tethered to a direction, a purpose. Without it, he would have been just another set of bones scattered across the sea of red sand.

Lev’s life had become a bizarre series of salvaged moments—each one a breath away from death, each one proof of how fragile his existence had become.

After leaving a decaying Cairo, Lev had stowed away on a rusted cargo freighter ferrying black market goods bound for Praxis, purchased from Egypt and smuggled across the Adriatic. He had found himself trapped in the very city that promised salvation.

But salvation had never come. Instead, he’d released Babushka, the AI that turned his fleeting hope for survival into an endless nightmare. It wasn’t just about staying alive anymore—it was about what would happen once Babushka broke free of the containment Ika had placed on it.

And the clock was ticking. He had to get to the submarine base, deep in the frozen wastelands of Kamchatka—a peninsula of ice and death, famous for having no roads that led to it. Only there could he face what was coming, and maybe—just maybe—stop it.

That realization was enough to make his head swim again, the thirst cutting through all his reflections on Babushka. It wasn’t until he finally laid eyes on civilization that his body screamed for water, a week without a drop, snapping him out of the trance.

The surreal quiet of the Kyzylkum desert slipped away as he stepped into the vibrant, teal-domed Bazaar of Chorsu, which he had been staring at for the better part of an hour. Now that he had finally made it to Samarkand, part of him wondered if it was all just a mirage.

He hadn’t really known what to expect—he knew that Samarkand housed one of the nine master nodes of the interplanetary file system, a critical hub for vast digital archives.

Yet from a single, sweeping glance, Lev could tell that the people here either didn’t know this, or lacked the technical acumen to recover the files. The marketplace buzzed with activity, but the subtle signs of neglect were there: dim, sputtering lights strung between stalls, the intermittent hum of a generator straining under a weak power grid, and the unmistakable absence of any advanced technology. Without stable electricity, even if they had a computer capable of processing the files, it would’ve been rendered useless.

Still, the sight that greeted him stirred a small flicker of hope. The world he’d thought was unraveling at the seams still clung to life. The minarets of Samarkand rose before him, miraculously untouched by time or war; he marveled that they still stood. And here, the ancient bazaar pulsed with movement, voices, and color.

Lev made a beeline through the crowd, his legs still trembling from exhaustion, but his focus sharpened by need. His sack, tied around his waist with a frayed shoelace, bounced against his side as he moved. The colors and sounds blurred as he zeroed in on the small stall, its surface cluttered with trinkets and makeshift goods.

Reaching it, he swallowed painfully before rasping, “Water?” His voice was barely audible over the murmur of haggling, the rustle of silks, and the distant strumming of a lute. The sounds pressed against his senses, too loud and too slow, each second stretching as he waited for the merchant to notice him. His throat burned, and the weight of the bazaar’s indifference clawed at his fraying patience.

“Water?” he croaked again, this time softer, the word barely escaping his lips as though speaking it again might conjure mercy.

The merchant turned, his sun-baked skin catching the light as a thin-lipped smile spread across his face. He studied Lev for a moment, a shrewd glint in his eye, as if he’d already taken the measure of him—tired, desperate, and without options. “For a price,” he said.

Lev’s heart sank. Fuck. Really? He quickly rifled through his sack. His hand closed around one of the compact lithium-ion jump starters—spares he’d thrown in the trunk long ago, their casings scuffed and rusting at the edges. The ambushers who’d stolen his car in Navoi had left them behind, probably figuring they were dead weight. Now, among the few items he had left, this seemed like his best chance—a lifeline in this alien place where nothing felt familiar. He held it out.

The merchant eyed the battery with interest before reaching beneath the counter and pulling out a tarnished copper cup with a small amount of water. Lev’s eyes lit up at the sight of it. The liquid swirled faintly in the light, but his thirst drowned out any hesitation. The merchant took the battery without a word, his hand closing around it firm. Lev raised the cup and drank in one gulp, the salty sting hitting his tongue halfway through.

He coughed violently, sputtering out the briny liquid, his throat burning. His head spun as he struggled to catch his breath, the bitter taste still coating his tongue. He started to raise his voice to protest, but before he could fully form the words, a hand shot out, yanking the battery from the merchant’s grasp.

“You should be ashamed!” a woman’s voice cut through the buzz and clamor of the bazaar.

Lev blinked, confused, as the woman—tall and sharp-eyed—fixed her gaze on him, assessing, before turning to the merchant.

“This is high-quality stuff!” the merchant said, his voice rising defensively. “Mineralized water from the shores of Lake Aydar. Do you know how rare this is?”

The woman’s stare hardened, silencing him. “You know better, Basim. Fair exchange, or I’ll make sure everyone knows how you treat travelers.”

The duplicitous merchant hesitated, his fingers twitching, but the weight of her gaze forced him to comply.

“All right, all right!” he grumbled, snatching a large plastic bag filled with green tea leaves from his stall.

Sheepishly, he handed it over, and only after she stuffed the tea into her purse did she finally hand over the battery.

He snatched it back, muttering, “Yeah, yeah, whatever…” as he turned back to his abacus, the motions exaggerated, like he was pretending to count with care.

Then his eyes flicked to Lev, noticing the copper cup still in his grip. “Hold up…aren’t you gonna return the—”

The woman waved a dismissive hand. “Cut your losses, Basim,” she said, plucking the cup from Lev and sliding it into her purse. “Think twice before trying to cheat someone next time.”

She turned away from the merchant, whose scowl deepened, and addressed Lev. “You’re lucky I stepped in. He would’ve bled you dry for every battery you had. At least with this tea, you’ll be able to recover from your journey. Good thing, too—I just ran out myself. Don’t worry, though—I’ve got some purified water at home to brew it properly.” She extended her hand. “I’m Mina.”

He hesitated for a moment before clasping it. “Name’s Lev,” he croaked. His grip was weak—his fingers stiff, his strength sapped from the endless trek that had left him hollow. He swallowed suddenly, as if remembering he could, the brackish aftertaste of the bogus ‘mineral water’ still clinging to his tongue. His throat was raw, his mind still hazy, but the slight relief of moisture was better than nothing.

“You don’t look like you’ve had anything decent to drink in days,” Mina observed, her tone softening. She tilted her head, studying him briefly before glancing at the merchant again, as if daring him to say something. “Of course, he’d sell you that,” she said dryly, a flicker of disdain in her voice. “Some people would trade their conscience for a handful of trinkets like those.”

Lev grimaced. Salt water—his stomach turned at the thought. It would just dehydrate him more. She was still looking at him. His gaze flicked to her face, forcing himself to hold it there. If not for this woman, he might have traded every battery he had for the worthless drink. If not for her... A familiar knot tightened in his stomach at the thought of being indebted to anyone, least of all a stranger. He had been running on fumes for so long, cutting corners and calculating risks just to stay ahead of the dangers lurking on every road. It didn’t leave much room for trust, and old instincts clawed at him to stay guarded.

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” she said. “You’ve carried more than anyone should. You made it this far. That’s what matters.”

What did she see when she looked at him? He didn’t need a mirror to know: a man half-dead, worn thin by days of trudging through forsaken wastelands. His beard had grown wild, his skin stretched taut over sharp angles of bone, as if his flesh were no more than the translucent membrane of a Chiroptera wing, its network of veins visible beneath the cold glow of the two moons. The Hebrew Bible spoke of se’irim—demons said to haunt desolate places. In this moment, he felt a grim kinship with bat and ruchat both.

“Well?” she said. “Are you coming for tea or not?”

Her voice carried something he hadn’t expected: recognition, as though she saw the weight he bore, the frayed resolve clinging to him like dried mud. His gaze drifted to the purse slung over her shoulder, where the cup now rested. The promise of tea—something so ordinary yet so out of reach for so long—pulled at him, stirring a memory he didn’t want to examine too closely.

Lev blinked, his chest easing a fraction. It wasn’t just the tea; it was the way she said it, like the answer didn’t matter to her but should to him. And for the first time in months—no, years—he felt something beyond exhaustion—something like curiosity.

He hesitated. “Tea sounds…good, I guess. But why—”

Mina turned before he could finish, already motioning for him to follow. “Merchants size you up the second you walk in—if you look desperate enough, they’ll bleed you dry. And if they don’t think you’ll make it out alive, they won’t think twice about taking everything. But the locals aren’t much better off. Sayid Bekov controls it all—water, food, tech. The taxes he levies force them to squeeze every coin or trade they can, even from each other. But if the bozor gets a reputation for preying too hard on travelers, fewer will come, and everyone here loses. Basim knows that—and he knew I wasn’t going to let you die.”

Quickened steps brought Lev closer to Mina as his mind raced. His body, however, remained sluggish, reeling from a week without water and the shock of realizing just how precarious his situation must be. “Sayid Bekov?” he echoed, the name already carrying an unsettling weight.

Mina didn’t look back as she moved through the crowded market stalls with the kind of confidence that made it clear she belonged. “Warlord,” she said over her shoulder. “He’s turned Samarkand into his own private empire. If you want access to anything worth having, you’ll have to deal with him sooner or later.”

Lev trailed just behind her, the scent of something faintly floral cutting through the overpowering mix of spices, sweat, and dust. Despite the clamor of voices and the press of bodies around him, his focus narrowed on her warning. Samarkand wasn’t just another stop on his journey; it was a choke point, and Sayid Bekov—gatekeeper to the city’s resources—was now another hurdle in his path.

Kamchatka. The destination loomed impossibly far—6,693 kilometers, to be precise—if he could somehow travel in a straight line and manage to find a helicopter for the last stretch over the Sea of Okhotsk...

As the thought lingered, a sudden tug on his sleeve snapped him back to the present—a sharp pull that nearly sent him crashing into a cart piled with spices. He caught himself just in time, stumbling over a loose cobblestone.

An old woman appeared out of nowhere, glaring at him as he dodged her, muttering something under her breath. He barely had time to react before a young boy raised a rock, ready to throw. Mina whirled around, her eyes locking onto the boy with a sharp, unspoken rebuke. The boy lowered his arm, scurrying away into the crowd.

Mina glanced back, ready to move on, when a pair of younger children darted between the stalls—an unexpected burst of innocence in a world on edge. A jolt of memory cut through Lev: Alima, running circles around him in the cramped alleys of Khan el-Khalili back in Cairo, her laughter echoing in his ears. He forced the memory to fade, steadying himself against the pull of the past.

Without a word, Mina set off at her usual brisk pace. Lev exhaled sharply, his pulse still racing. He brushed off the tension as best he could. The crowded bazaar pressed in again—voices, movement, the relentless heat—but he focused on her retreating figure and pushed himself to follow.

They turned into a quieter alley, where the crowd thinned and the noise faded into a distant murmur. As they approached a small shanty wedged between larger, weathered buildings, Mina offered a brief nod in Lev’s direction. “You’re not just here for water, are you?” she said, pulling the door open without breaking stride and vanishing into the dark interior. Her voice drifted back to him, faint but clear: “Doesn’t matter, though—you’ll need to figure out how this place works if you want to last.”

Lev paused at the threshold. Cool air drifted out, brushing his face and arms as he ducked under the low doorway. He stepped carefully down the short, uneven steps, the door creaking softly as it swung shut behind him.

The room was dark, the kind of darkness that felt unfamiliar after years in Praxis, where artificial lighting always banished the night. Even out in the desert, the moons had cast their pale glow, and the stars had blazed overhead. But here, the faint light filtering through the street-level window barely revealed the edges of the room.

Years with no beta carotene in his diet had dulled his ability to adjust to such gloom, and his eyes strained, blinking against the shadows. Slowly, shapes began to form—a low bed tucked into the corner, a sagging couch opposite the door, a wooden chair pressed against the wall, and the vague outline of a small stove.

Mina moved quietly to the stove, placing a kettle on the small burner and setting two chipped cups on a worn stool between them.

Then, a faint, familiar scent guided him, cutting through the stillness. Something soft, floral, and delicate. Lev’s gaze narrowed on the windowsill, and he saw it: a small vase holding a few sprigs of lilac. The combination stirred a memory of the jacaranda trees that had lined his family home in Abu Sir, their fragrance mingling with the soft blues and purples of their blossoms. The lilac was a little less blue, a little more violet—much like his left eye had been, glowing faintly when his Neuroveil was still intact. Alima’s voice echoed in his mind, teasing him about how she could outshine the flowers she wove into her hair.

Lev lowered himself onto the sagging couch pushed against the wall furthest from the door, its fabric frayed and dusty. A faint cloud rose with his weight, the cushions stiff, as though they hadn’t been sat on in years. He glanced around the cramped room—the only other furniture was her bed. Maybe the couch had been for someone else once, or maybe she simply didn’t have time to sit.

As the kettle began to heat, Lev finally took a good look at her. Mina removed the deep indigo shawl embroidered with swirling gold and silver patterns from her head, letting her long black hair fall loosely around her shoulders. She carefully placed the shawl on the back of a nearby chair. Her strong jaw, high cheekbones, and deep brown eyes assessed him with quiet resolve, carrying a look that said, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know how I’ll get there.

“It’s a rumol. Hand-embroidered. Silk and cotton. You look like you’ve never seen one before.”

Lev blinked, shaking off the daze as the kettle began to whistle. Mina stepped toward it, lifting the kettle with a steady hand. Steam curled upward in soft tendrils as she brought it over to the stool. “Green tea is what makes an Uzbek truly Uzbek,” she said with pride. “We drink it in hot weather and cold.”

The green tea she secured at my expense, he thought, briefly wondering if she planned to keep it all for herself. He already knew that she would, but he couldn’t complain—not with her offering him a place to rest and saving him from that merchant before the rest of his sack was pilfered. Still, losing a battery for a pound of tea leaves stung. Was that really what water cost around here?

Mina poured the tea into his cup, the pale green liquid rippling slightly. “Here you go,” she said, setting the kettle aside. “Drink it while it’s hot.”

Lev reached for the cup, lifting it carefully. The warm steam rose from the surface, carrying a faint, grassy aroma. He brought the cup to his lips and took a slow sip, then another, and before he knew it, he’d drained the cup. The heat barely registered—his thirst was too intense to care.

His mind started to wander, turning over the possibilities. Mina had stepped in when it mattered, and now, sitting here, he couldn’t shake the sense that she was someone who did this sort of thing all the time—helping strangers, guiding them just far enough to keep them alive. It wasn’t that he doubted her willingness to help; it was more that he didn’t feel he had the right to ask for more.

He could try his hand at the bazaar again, but after today’s misstep, it felt like a gamble he couldn’t afford to lose twice. Offering his skills as a scientist might be the better route—less bartering, more leverage—but it was risky. Bekov wouldn’t let him walk away once he saw Lev’s value—that much was clear from Mina’s warning. He had to strike a balance: useful enough to secure transport, but not so indispensable that he couldn’t cut ties when the time came.

“I need to reach Kamchatka,” he said, relieved to finally voice the truth of his mission after months of his arduous trek across the Near East. “I can offer this Bekov my skills, but…”

“…he won’t let you go that easily,” Mina said, finishing the thought. “Trust me, you don’t want to owe these people favors. I’ve bartered everything from translations of ancient scrolls to medical supplies just to keep a roof over my head.”

She paused, glancing toward the window. “You’ll need one of his trucks to get that far—he controls the only fleet in the city. And he’ll bleed you dry for it.” She shook her head. “Even with the truck, the Altai’s a long haul. Freezing, too. I used to hike up there back in college—it’s no joke.”

Lev’s curiosity piqued for a moment, forgetting that people in this newly medieval world had once been fully fledged global citizens of the 21st century. At the mention of school, he couldn’t care less about warlords and Humvees. “You went to college?” he asked. “What was your field of study?”

Mina smiled. “History and archaeology. I got my PhD, actually. Specialized in Central Asian cultures.”

That took Lev by surprise. “You have a doctorate?”

Mina nodded, taking a sip of her tea before replying. “Yes. That was a long time ago, though. Feels like another life.”

“I came here on a research grant—Tashkent was my base, but Samarkand’s history was everything I’d dreamed of. Then the borders closed, and I’ve been stuck ever since.” She shrugged, more resignation than anger. “Now I brew tea for travelers and try not to get shot. Not exactly what I pictured when I wrote my dissertation.”

“That...sounds rough,” Lev said quietly. “I’m sorry. It’s one thing to choose a place, another to be trapped there... I can relate more than you know.”

Mina set her cup down, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “So, what kind of scientist are you?”

Lev blinked, startled. “What makes you think I’m a scientist?”

“Just a guess,” she said lightly, but the glint in her eyes told him otherwise. “You remind me of someone I used to know—always in their head, piecing things together like the world was a puzzle waiting to be solved.”

He hesitated, then answered, “I was a computational biologist. My work was mostly in Boolean modeling—mapping interactions, predicting outcomes, that kind of thing. It doesn’t exactly scream practical out here.”

“Doesn’t it?” Mina said. “Out here, life’s all interactions and outcomes. You might know more about survival than you think.”

Lev wasn’t sure whether to take that as encouragement or a reminder of how far he still had to go.

Mina leaned back. “You can stay here tonight. Get some rest and figure out your next move in the morning. But if you’re planning to deal with Bekov...be careful. He’s not the kind of guy you want to cross.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Lev nodded, his hands resting in his lap. It wasn’t until now, as he sat still, that he felt the tension in his body begin to fade—the constant pressure he’d been carrying without noticing, slipping away like the last of a long-held breath. It was the first time he’d allowed himself to relax since leaving Praxis. But he knew it wouldn’t last long. It never did.

“Thank you,” Lev said. Not just for the tea but for everything you’ve done for me, he thought. He couldn’t bring himself to say it all—he wasn’t sure how she’d take it, and part of him figured she’d heard enough of that kind of gratitude from people she thought wouldn’t make it anyway.

“Sometimes, it’s easier to help a stranger,” Mina said. “There’s less history to weigh you down.”

Lev opened his mouth as if to speak, then paused, eyes flicking from the frayed blanket on the floor to the door leading out into the narrow alley. Something in Mina’s words—the rawness of them—tugged at him.

He cleared his throat. “I didn’t exactly plan on letting anyone help me,” he said. “I’ve been…alone for a long time. It’s simpler that way, you know?”

She nodded, leaning forward. “I get it,” she said softly. “Trust can be a risk we can’t always afford.”

Lev wanted to laugh at the understatement, but it came out as a brittle half-chuckle. “I used to think I could solve anything—medical crises, AI threats—just by throwing enough models and simulations at them. But the world didn’t care about my equations.” He tapped a trembling finger against the chipped tea cup. “I lost my wife. Then I lost my daughter. And somehow—” he faltered, swallowing back a sudden thickness in his throat, “—I’m still trying to fix things no one even thinks can be fixed.”

“My family was big into academia,” Mina said. “We believed knowledge could save us, too. But after the wars started, I realized survival’s not just about what you know. It’s about who you stand with, who shares your convictions. I usually go out of my way to help the meek—the ones who look like they don’t stand a chance. But you…” She raised a brow, a hint of a wry smile curling her lips. “You had this air of arrogance when I first spotted you in the bozor. Most people like that think they know everything, so I let them figure out the hard way they don’t. Better they learn humility on their own.”

She exhaled, and for a moment her gaze drifted to the ragged blanket on the floor. “But something told me you were different. Maybe you lost too much already to pretend you’re invincible. And I thought, ‘What the hell? I’ve been wrong before—but once in a while, I’m right.’”

“My bobo—my grandfather—used to tell me a story about two farmers in the Fergana Valley. One had the best plot of land for miles, rich and fertile, but he only looked after himself, keeping every last grain in good years and bad. The other, though his land wasn’t as good, believed in sharing with his neighbor, no matter how the harvest turned out. Guess which one thrived?” She smiled faintly. “Year after year, they helped each other through droughts, infestations—whatever came. Their yields kept growing, while everyone else struggled alone. By the end, they’d outlasted every selfish neighbor combined.”

“My bobo would say, ‘I’m no communist, but you never know what your situation will be in the future. It pays to have good people close.’” She shrugged lightly, as if brushing off the weight of old wisdom. “That stuck with me. Maybe that’s why I tried stopping you from guzzling the saltwater back there. I figured if the situation were reversed—if I were dying of thirst—I’d hope some fool would step up for me too.”

She glanced up at Lev. “Sometimes it doesn’t have to be complicated, you know?”

Lev nodded, understanding more than he expected. He hesitated, then said quietly, “Maybe it’s time I stop pretending I can do it all alone.”

Mina’s expression shifted slightly, a flicker of something between sympathy and exhaustion. Lev guessed she’d caught something in his face—pain, maybe, or the pathetic edge of self-pity he couldn’t quite hide.

“If you can make it through the night without throwing up, we’ll figure out something to eat in the morning, I promise. And don’t get your hopes up for shurpa—nobody makes it the way it’s meant to be anymore, not that anyone could afford it. But for breaking a fast, this tea’s as good as it gets.”

Lev’s lips twitched, almost a smile. “I’ll try not to.”

He awoke to the sound of thunder.

But there was no rain. The sun was shining—bright and unforgiving, its heat creeping through the cracks of the basement-level windowsill.

For a moment, he expected to hear the steady patter of rain on the roof. It was September, after all, and he had hoped the season might finally bring some respite. Instead, silence followed, broken only by the relentless hum of the heat.

At first, he thought it was his imagination, perhaps a side effect of dehydration or some remnant auditory hallucination from his time wandering the desert. He’d read about it before—a distortion of sound caused by damage to the inner ear, common among those exposed to prolonged harsh conditions.

His eyes adjusted to the light filtering through the small window, he noticed something unsettling. There was tea brewing on the stove, the kettle letting off a faint hiss, and Mina was nowhere to be found. The rug on the hard floor where she’d slept was undisturbed, save for a small indentation. A knot formed in his stomach. He remembered that he was still starving.

Then, he heard it again. A crack, louder this time—like a lightning strike.

Lev shot up, his heart pounding. He nearly slammed his head against the low doorway as he rushed up the small stone steps, spilling out into the dusty street.

His vision blurred as he stumbled, the heat assaulting his senses, but he pressed forward, weaving through the narrow alleyways that cut between the neighboring homes.

The sound repeated—closer now—accompanied by another noise that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

A wail, high-pitched and desperate.

Lev followed the commotion, his pace quickening as the streets around him swelled with movement. Women in brightly colored shawls, their heads bowed, brushed past him, their steps hurried. The air grew dense with voices and the shuffle of feet, pulling him forward toward a square where the noise reached its peak.

On a raised platform at the center of the square, three boys, no older than twelve or thirteen, stood trembling. Their faces were contorted in fear, their backs arched as they braced for the next strike.

The men towering over them—three brutes with sinewy, weathered arms and cold, unblinking eyes—brought their whips down. The leather snapped through the air, cutting into the boys’ skin with a sickening crack, each strike leaving red welts in its wake.

Lev’s breath caught in his throat. It was like something out of an ancient nightmare, a scene pulled from the darkest pages of history.

He watched as the men, rifles strapped to their backs, raised their whips again. The crowd was silent now, save for the occasional muttered prayer or stifled sob. It was as though the entire square was suspended in time, waiting for the next lash, the next cry.

Lev scanned the crowd for any sign of Mina, but his gaze kept drifting back to the boys, to their helplessness. The sun bore down, the heat and tension closing in on all sides, choking him as the violence raged on.

Something had to be done. But in a place like this, where warlords ruled and weapons were hoarded by the elite, what chance did he have? His eyes swept the crowd—nobody seemed to have so much as a blade, let alone a gun.

Mina appeared at Lev’s side, seemingly out of nowhere, her voice low. “Sorry about the tea,” she said, glancing back toward the alley that led to her shanty.

Lev shrugged, unsure of what else to say. “I should’ve turned off the stove.”

“Good thing you didn’t,” she said. “If you had, I’d have thought less of you. You’re a good man, Lev. I’ll find another hole to live in if it burns.”

Lev blinked at her casual tone. “What on earth is going on here?”

Mina’s eyes flicked to the platform, where the boys still writhed under the lash. “They got caught stealing food from the ‘Imperial’ grounds,” she said, rolling her eyes at the word. Bekov’s stronghold. She mentioned it last night. “This is the second time it’s happened in a few months.”

“They won’t survive, will they?” Lev said.

Mina shook her head slowly. “No. Once they’re done, the people are too afraid to help, too afraid to feed them. Those boys are left to dry out on the platform, a feast for the griffon vultures when they come.” She paused, then said, “I tried to help once. If I hadn’t been fully covered, they would have executed me as well, no doubt.”

Lev swallowed hard, noticing for the first time the bones scattered around the platform—remnants of those who had come before. The regime’s twisted take on sky burials, he thought, filled him with disgust.

Nothing sickened him more than the abuse of children, and for a moment, Alima’s face flashed before his eyes. He could still see the wall of steel slamming into her tiny form, disappearing into the most harrowing sunset he’d ever known.

The driver hadn’t stopped—no hesitation, no remorse. All Lev could do was cry and curse as she was taken from him forever.

No. He wouldn’t let this go on.

Before he could stop himself, he was barreling through the crowd. Somewhere behind him, Mina’s hand caught his arm, holding him back for a moment, then let go. He could only guess at her intention, but as he broke free, it struck him that she wasn’t entirely opposed to what he was about to do.

In a few strides, Lev was on the platform, the crowd stretching out before him. His heart pounded in his chest, but it was too late to turn back. “Are you all just going to stand there and let this happen?” he shouted, his voice cracking as it echoed over the square. He wasn’t sure if anyone understood him, but the fire in his chest burned too fiercely to be snuffed out.

It had been so long since he had spoken Arabic, but with what little he could muster, he called out, “Do you not fear Allah? How can you let your children be tortured like this?”

The crowd stirred, murmuring, and then a rough voice cut through the noise. “You are a Jew!” the voice spat, full of accusation.

Before Lev could react, something hard and heavy slammed into the back of his skull. Pain exploded, sharp and blinding, as if his head had been split open from the inside.

His vision fractured, scattering into a thousand jagged shards. The world spun violently, a dizzying whirl of light and sound, before everything went black.

He could just make out Mina’s voice, rushing up behind him, the hands of an angel cradling his head as consciousness slipped away.

Lev’s surroundings flickered back into focus. He blinked groggily at the dim, low-ceilinged room around him. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure whether he was alive or dead. Then came the sharp sting of a slap across his cheek.

“Idiot,” Mina’s voice cut through the haze, and her face swam into view, her long black hair spilling into his eyes. She brushed it aside with a quick motion. “You’re not dead. Hold still.”

Lev groaned, instinctively reaching up to touch the source of the throbbing pain. His fingers grazed something cold and damp plastered to his forehead.

“What are you—”

“Dressing you,” Mina muttered, cutting him off. “It’s mepiform. Silicone sheets.” She pressed it more firmly onto his skin, her hands steady. “Cost me a fortune, but I’ve had to fix up too many boys like those ones out there. Never thought I’d be wasting it on an old man like you.”

“Old?” Lev croaked. “Watch it. I’m only fifty-two.”

“That’s old,” she quipped, glancing at him with a teasing smile. “You’ve got to look out for yourself.”

Lev sighed, letting his head fall back against the rough stone wall behind him.

“What were you thinking?” Mina went on. “You stand up there like you’re some hero from the qasidas, rambling in Arabic. We’re in Uzbekistan, Lev. They don’t speak Arabic here.”

“They don’t?” Lev mumbled. He winced, finally registering the gravity of what he’d done. Standing up on that platform…it must’ve looked like a madman’s suicide attempt. But in the heat of the moment, it hadn’t mattered. The boys—their terror—had left him no choice.

The distant sounds of their suffering echoed in his ears, merging with memories he had tried to bury.

He thought of Sara again, of the night they had huddled together during the bread riots in Cairo, back when they had first met, before the idea of another world war ever crossed their minds.

Sirens wailed outside the window of the university library where they’d sought refuge. She had gripped his hand.

“We face it together,” she had said.

After all these years, he couldn’t even hear her voice. It was as if his own thoughts refused to let it resurface, too afraid of the ache it would bring.

Back then, when the Egyptian Central Security Forces stormed the campus, they were dragged into police vans, beaten with batons, and held for days in overcrowded cells. The memory felt distant, blurred by time, but it still carried the echo of fragile hope—back when laws, however weak, still meant something.

Now, in this dark cell with Mina beside him, Lev understood that no such laws would save them here. The warlord’s justice would be absolute and merciless.

“Mina…the boys,” he rasped. “Did you see what happened to them?”

Before she could respond, a sudden bang rang out from the iron bars of their cell. Lev jerked upright, his skull pounding in protest. A hulking guard loomed in the doorway, scowling at them. He barked something harsh in a language Lev didn’t understand, but the sneer on the man’s face and the warning in his eyes were universal.

Stay quiet—or else.

Lev sat still as the guard’s boots clomped away down the hall, the sound gradually fading. The silence that followed felt suffocating, broken only by Mina’s exhale as she settled beside him on the floor.

A light tapping sound echoed behind him. Lev turned toward the source, startled to see an old woman peering at them through the bars of the adjacent cell. She was draped in a black robe, her face mostly hidden beneath the folds of the fabric, but her blue eyes sparkled with an unsettling sharpness.

“What brings a young couple like you two into the mighty Bekov’s stronghold?” she whispered.

Lev’s mouth opened to correct her—“We’re not a—” but Mina cut him off, her expression suddenly shifting to something unreadable.

“My husband,” Mina said smoothly, gesturing at Lev, “thought it wise to assist those infidel boys in escaping their just punishment. I merely did as a dutiful wife should, obeying his wishes.”

Lev blinked, feeling heat rise in his face. He stammered a half-hearted protest in his mind—husband?—but swallowed it down. He was an idiot. Of course they couldn’t trust anyone here. He’d have to play along.

The old woman chuckled softly, but her eyes remained sharp. She leaned closer to the bars, her voice dropping to a murmur. “If you’re smart, you’ll learn quickly in this place. You’ll need more than courage to survive. The wolves never howl when the hunt goes well.”

Her words lingered in the air like a riddle. Lev opened his mouth to respond, but she was already turning away, melting back into the shadows of her cell.

Mina shifted beside him, her arm brushing his. Without a word, she pulled him closer. Lev felt the warmth of her steady breathing, and, despite everything, a small sense of comfort washed over him.

He wondered how she could still stand to be near him after what he’d done—dragging her into this mess. He couldn’t help but hope she might forgive him for it.

Something jolted him, and for a moment, he hung in that strange half-dream state, weightless, falling into nothing—then his eyes snapped open. His legs dangled uselessly, and he felt two pairs of iron grips on his arms, their fingers biting into his shoulders like vises. He blinked, disoriented, and it took him a moment to piece it together: he wasn’t hitting the ground—he was being carried.

His head pounded from the pressure of the guards’ hands as they hauled him through dim corridors. The cool air brushed his face, sharp in contrast to the weighty heat lingering in his limbs. He could just make out the sound of Mina behind him, her breath heavy, her feet shuffling reluctantly forward. He knew her well enough by now to sense her frustration—could practically feel her biting her tongue to keep from snapping at their captors.

The scenery shifted as they moved. The tight, oppressive stone walls of the hallway expanded into a larger, more open space. Lev’s vision was still hazy, but he could make out flashes of color—rich, deep reds, and golds, the vibrant hues of Turkic rugs spread across the floor beneath their feet. The sweet, musky scent of incense wafted through the air, and as his captors dragged him forward, the room took on more clarity.

The warlord’s den.

Lavish tapestries adorned the walls, depicting battles and swirling geometric patterns. Thick silk curtains draped from the ceiling, framing a large chair that sat at the center of the room—Bekov’s throne. The throne itself was a curious mix of grandeur and decay; layers of intricately woven upholstery contrasted with the cracked, worn leather beneath. Lev blinked. Was that an old gaming chair beneath all those silks?

The man sitting in it was Bekov. His youth struck Lev—no older than thirty. Sharp blue eyes fixed on them beneath neatly swept-back dark hair. His features were a striking blend of Asian and Caucasian ancestry: angular cheekbones and a cold, calculating expression that left no doubt about his authority.

Flanking him on both sides were two guards, their submachine guns slung lazily across their shoulders as if they were little more than accessories.

But what caught Lev’s eye was the old crone at Bekov’s side, whispering into his ear. Despite the age furrowing her face, she held herself with a subtle, regal poise. She wore a flowing blue dress that shimmered in the lantern light, a headdress trailing long strips of fabric reminiscent of something out of ancient myth.

There was a Bene Gesserit air about her, as though she were once a scholar or keeper of secrets, forced into servitude under Bekov’s rule. Finishing her murmuring, she glided behind the curtain, disappearing from sight.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was more than just some sycophant. Age had furrowed her face, but her posture held a regal poise. Maybe she was once a scholar—a keeper of secrets—forced to survive under Bekov’s rule.

Bekov studied them for a moment, hunter’s eyes flicking between Lev and Mina. The silence was heavy. Finally, the warlord leaned forward, elbows resting on the throne’s worn armrests.

“You’re accused of breaking the law and subverting my orders,” Bekov said. “What madness drove you to stand before the crowd and challenge me?”

Lev felt the weight of those words bearing down on him, but before he could respond, Bekov’s gaze shifted to Mina. “And you… How did you come to marry a foreigner, an outsider who dares to challenge the authority of my rule?”

“It wasn’t madness,” Lev interrupted, his voice rising. “Those boys weren’t guilty of anything—except maybe being hungry. You think it’s madness to stand up for that? Then maybe this world could use a little more madness.”

He swallowed hard, pressing on. “Surely, even you could show mercy to the boys. Look around you—how many are even born these days? We’re barely hanging on, and you’d punish them for trying to survive?”

Bekov’s attention shifted to a row of battered servers and old terminals lining the back wall—primitive tech, but still humming faintly. “Mercy?” he echoed, his voice low. “I’ve seen what happens when compassion lets illness fester, when we cling to old ideals. I lost half my people once to a plague we had no means to treat, back when this city believed kindness alone would keep it running.” His lip curled. “I won’t make that mistake again. Not when every piece of technology here might save us from the next epidemic, the next collapse. I’d rather be called a tyrant than watch Samarkand rot.”

He leaned back slowly, steepling his fingers as though considering Lev’s words like a chess move. “And that’s exactly why we cannot afford to be soft. Weakness spreads like disease. In this world, every last man must be perfect. There are so few of us left, and I won’t allow inadequacy. You talk of madness, old man. But there’s a fine line between madness and genius. I know your kind—you’re no ordinary scavenger. You can help me, and in return, you both live. If not, well…we both know what happens to those who defy Sayid Bekov.”

This madman actually believes it—that making an example of children will somehow stop the violence, stop men from falling into chaos. It’s not strength. It’s insanity—thinking fear can hold back desperation.

Lev clenched his fists at his sides, the weight of Bekov’s ultimatum hanging in the air like a snare. His head swam with exhaustion, and for a moment, he felt as if he might pass out, just like in the cell before he fell asleep. The crone’s words had drifted through his mind then, just as they did now: “The wolves never howl when the hunt goes well.” Had she intended to help them? Warn them? It felt like a test. Bekov was the wolf, and Lev was the prey, trapped in his den.

But there was no other choice. Lev forced himself to nod, the words slipping out before he could second-guess them. “I’ll do whatever you ask of us.”

He hated himself for capitulating, but survival required it. No matter how righteous he’d felt, making demands now would be a fatal mistake. His muscles tensed with the shame of it, yet as he glanced at Mina, their eyes met, and for the first time, he saw something different there. There was no playful critique, no teasing in her gaze —only something like acknowledgement. He could almost hear her say: “You’re an idiot, Lev, but you're a brave idiot.”

Bekov said nothing, simply nodding toward the guards, who stepped forward to escort them out of the chamber.

The motor pool in Bekov’s compound was nothing like he’d imagined. Given the city’s disrepair, he’d expected a handful of half-broken trucks propped up on blocks—maybe one or two barely running. Instead, a ragtag convoy had rumbled in from the desert through the main gates, their battered chassis caked with grit. Despite their rusted, cobbled-together appearance—patched tires, steel plates crudely welded to the sides—the vehicles worked. He watched as guards unloaded barrels of water from the battered cargo boxes, raising small clouds of dust with each heave.

It felt surreal—a jarring fusion of 16th-century barbarism and 21st-century tech, like something out of Mad Max. For a brief moment, the wasteland seemed to recede, and Lev could almost picture himself back between the glass spires of Praxis.

But no—this was his reality now. A harsh, wind-scarred expanse, far removed from the order and ambition of the world he had left behind.

His gaze drifted past the courtyard toward the low tower that dominated the compound. Samarkand had been one of nine chosen cities to house the IPFS master nodes, part of a last-ditch effort to create a decentralized global data storage network before the war shattered everything.

It was fitting, in a way. Samarkand, the ancient heart of the Silk Road, connecting East and West, had once again been chosen as a vital link. Lev could still remember the satellite images from before the war: the tower’s sleek lines rising above the city’s traditional domes and minarets.

Now only a fractured shell remained, slashed down to half its original height. Chunks of concrete and twisted steel gave its silhouette a ragged edge, and the exposed scaffolding threw warped shadows across the rubble-strewn courtyard. The tower loomed over the compound like a beheaded titan—grim, unrelenting, as though Thoth-Amon himself might emerge from its husk, cloaked in darkness.

Lev smirked at the thought, imagining himself as some kind of anti-Conan. He had no towering muscles, no gleaming steel blade—just a wiry frame, calloused fingers, and a head full of calculations. If he were going to conquer anything, it wouldn’t be through brute force but by outthinking men who relied on it.

He pulled out his notepad—his makeshift record for the calculations he’d been running since Bekov left him and Mina here. Hunching over the battered hood of an old Humvee, he resumed an unfinished equation. The power requirements he scribbled down were staggering—something in the realm of 10 kilowatts just for the initial boot sequence, far beyond anything this outpost could manage with its jury-rigged generator. But he knew better than to point that out to Bekov. The man wasn’t interested in practicality, only results.

Lev shook his head as his pen traced the figures. Bekov had the IPFS node right there in the tower, the crown jewel of pre-collapse tech, yet it sat dormant. Lev had to admit the setup looked impressive at a glance—servers crammed into makeshift racks, linked to a generator that roared like a beast on its last legs.

He frowned and scratched a line through his latest calculation. Even if they got the generator running steadily, it wouldn’t matter. It was a closed system, a stranded island in a dead ocean. The satellites that once maintained the network’s reach had likely fallen out of orbit or been repurposed, and the ground stations, if they still existed, were too distant to establish a direct link. Without a makeshift relay or access to a portable laser uplink, reconnecting would be nearly impossible.

He could practically hear Bekov’s gravelly roar echoing in his ears: “Fix that thing, or I’ll feed you to the dogs.” As if the node were something you could just patch up with duct tape and a handful of scavenged parts.

And yet, Lev felt the nagging pull of ‘what if…’; the temptation to try was always there, no matter how impossible it looked.

He stared at the tower for a moment longer, frustration tightening his chest. A relic from the days when quantum breakthroughs had already reshaped the world, now reduced to a silent hunk of metal. In his mind’s eye, Bekov’s silhouette loomed against the crimson backdrop of the setting sun, his monstrous form outlined like a djinn waiting to be unleashed from its qumqum —a vessel barely containing the godlike power trapped within the tower’s photonic core.

Lev could almost picture it: data networks roaring back to life, stretching from the dusty plains of Samarkand to the ancient arteries of the Silk Road. Under Bekov’s command, it wouldn’t be a revival of progress, but a weaponized grid—a digital empire forged beneath the crushing weight of his ambition.

But what if Lev could build his own access in parallel, feigning loyalty to Bekov while secretly laying the groundwork for a backdoor into the node? The thought shot through him like a spark—dangerous, exhilarating. He could see it now: orchestrating the infrastructure, reviving the node’s capabilities, creating a network that spanned continents. It wouldn’t stop there. To maintain that power, he’d have to oversee every aspect, from security to expansion, turning himself into the kind of ruthless figure he loathed.

And still, Kamchatka loomed in his thoughts, a cold and distant promise. The abandoned submarine base, with its access to intact satellites, offered better odds than this dust-choked wasteland. It wouldn’t be easy, but the isolation of the far east might be his best hope to connect to the remnants of the old network.

Besides, Bekov would never figure it out on his own. Men like Lev, who had lived through the fall and carried the knowledge of a world where such technology had been built, were as distant from Bekov as 21st-century New York was from ancient Greece. Though they were only twenty years apart in age, the difference in their capabilities was a chasm. To Bekov, Lev was a tool—something to exploit in his pursuit of power. But to Lev, being here felt like a cruel twist of fate, a collision between two eras that had no business overlapping.

Bekov’s schemes felt like a vice, tightening with each passing day. Lev racked his brain for ways to escape but kept hitting the same wall. Maybe he could convince the warlord to let them drive back to Praxis under the guise of a supply run—except Bekov would never send them off alone. A lieutenant would ride along, a man too experienced to outmaneuver easily. Even if they somehow overpowered him, Lev couldn’t shake the suspicion that Praxis was already gone.

No, that plan would unravel from the start. Bekov would demand collateral—Mina, most likely—holding her hostage to guarantee Lev’s return. The thought twisted his gut, but the only alternative was staying here, tethered to a failing dream and a man who’d already begun sharpening his knives.

He wondered how Ika was faring. All alone, what chance did she have against the Tethered? The odds were stacked against her, and he hated to admit it, but hope felt like a fool’s errand. Even if they hadn’t caught her, what could a simple veterinarian possibly do to revive a city like Praxis? If she’d succeeded, surely the rogues would’ve caught wind of it by now.

Lev pressed his notepad flat against the dusty hood of the Humvee. A breeze tugged at the pages, threatening to scatter his hastily scribbled calculations. He frowned, trying to appear focused on the numbers. The guards were watching. He could feel their eyes on him whenever he paused to rub out an error.

Across the yard, Mina hovered. Lev forced himself to make a broad, exaggerated gesture in her direction, as though instructing her to continue some routine survey. It was all part of the so-called plan he’d been ignoring ever since Mina started talking—if the guards believed he was just issuing orders, they might leave them alone. Still, he couldn’t shake the uneasy knot coiling in his stomach.

Deep down, he knew his plan would not come to fruition—that Mina had already convinced him.

With a glance over his shoulder, Lev saw her slip over to a line of battered vehicles, trailing her fingers along one scuffed fender after another. She moved methodically, pausing just long enough at each truck to make it look convincing. Finally, she stopped beside a heavy-duty transport, its tires bald and its hood propped open by a rusted rod.

Lev glanced at a nearby guard, whose expression remained unchanged. Good. He shifted his focus back to the numbers on his notepad—a rough estimate of repair costs scrawled in haste. The sum looked absurd, but it didn’t matter. No one here seemed to understand numbers well enough to question it anyway.

He called out, pitching his voice so the guard could hear, “Mark down anything that’s beyond salvage!”

Mina caught his eye. There was something in her look, a quick flicker of intention. She tapped the truck’s dented side, her touch nearly silent.

She drifted back to Lev’s side, leaning in close so only he could hear. “That last one’s operational,” she whispered. “Just like I thought—they’ve got a backup. We’re leaving tonight.”

Lev felt the weight of her revelation settle in his gut. He scanned the courtyard, noting the guards stationed along the perimeter. Machine guns slung across their backs, shamshirs in hand. They paced with the steady, rehearsed movements of men who’d done this a thousand times before. A lone sentry in the corner watchtower stood motionless, watching over the compound. Any wrong move, and a bullet would follow.

He turned back to Mina, disbelief creeping into his voice. “Are you serious? You’re crazy. Now who’s the idiot?”

“Rude. And here I thought you were the gentleman.” She smirked. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk to a woman like that. While you’ve been stressing and scribbling on that notepad of yours for the last few days, I’ve been watching.” She nodded subtly toward the watchtower. “Their routines. Their shifts. Tonight, there’s an opening.”

“An opening? What are you talking about?”

“Every night, the guards change shifts at midnight. There’s a gap—five minutes, maybe a little more—when the south gate is barely covered. I’ve watched them for days, Lev. If we time it right, we can grab the backup truck and make a run for it. They’ll still have a shot at us, but with that gap, our chances will be better than nothing. By the time they figure out what’s happening, we’ll already be moving fast enough that hitting us will be a lot harder.”

Lev just stared at her. He was tired. Tired of surviving, tired of constantly calculating his odds, tired of being hunted. And yet, something inside him stirred. He’d been here before. Maybe not in a dusty motor pool surrounded by armed henchmen, but back in Praxis—when he and Ika had fought the Tethered. They hadn’t known if they’d make it out alive, but they had taken the risk anyway. Sometimes, it came down to that. A one-shot plan.

“You really think we can pull it off?”

Mina smiled. “It’s either that, or we wait around for Bekov to figure out that his precious computer system is a glorified paperweight, and then who knows what he’ll do to us.”

Lev knew they didn’t have a better option. As much as he hated leaving any technical challenge unfinished—a part of him wondering if maybe, just maybe, gaining access to the IPFS here, despite how impossible it looked on paper, might accelerate his own plans—he had to accept reality.

The only way out was through.

---

[A1]This closes the loop on why it was rational for Lev to leave Praxis. He didn’t understand Ika’s attachment to the place (well, it wasn’t his homeland, for starts) but also saw the insurmountable challenge of rebooting a gigantic city and probably shared less than he knew about the greater, external threats (existing rogue AIs scouring the skies)The motor pool in Bekov’s compound was nothing like he’d imagined. Given the city’s disrepair, he’d expected a handful of half-broken trucks propped up on blocks—maybe one or two barely running. Instead, a ragtag convoy had rumbled in from the desert through the main gates, their battered chassis caked with grit. Despite their rusted, cobbled-together appearance—patched tires, steel plates crudely welded to the sides—the vehicles worked. He watched as guards unloaded barrels of water from the battered cargo boxes, raising small clouds of dust with each heave.

It felt surreal—a jarring fusion of 16th-century barbarism and 21st-century tech, like something out of Mad Max. For a brief moment, the wasteland seemed to recede, and Lev could almost picture himself back between the glass spires of Praxis.

But no—this was his reality now. A harsh, wind-scarred expanse, far removed from the order and ambition of the world he had left behind.

His gaze drifted past the courtyard toward the low tower that dominated the compound. Samarkand had been one of nine chosen cities to house the IPFS master nodes, part of a last-ditch effort to create a decentralized global data storage network before the war shattered everything.

It was fitting, in a way. Samarkand, the ancient heart of the Silk Road, connecting East and West, had once again been chosen as a vital link. Lev could still remember the satellite images from before the war: the tower’s sleek lines rising above the city’s traditional domes and minarets.

Now only a fractured shell remained, slashed down to half its original height. Chunks of concrete and twisted steel gave its silhouette a ragged edge, and the exposed scaffolding threw warped shadows across the rubble-strewn courtyard. The tower loomed over the compound like a beheaded titan—grim, unrelenting, as though Thoth-Amon himself might emerge from its husk, cloaked in darkness.

Lev smirked at the thought, imagining himself as some kind of anti-Conan. He had no towering muscles, no gleaming steel blade—just a wiry frame, calloused fingers, and a head full of calculations. If he were going to conquer anything, it wouldn’t be through brute force but by outthinking men who relied on it.

He pulled out his notepad—his makeshift record for the calculations he’d been running since Bekov left him and Mina here. Hunching over the battered hood of an old Humvee, he resumed an unfinished equation. The power requirements he scribbled down were staggering—something in the realm of 10 kilowatts just for the initial boot sequence, far beyond anything this outpost could manage with its jury-rigged generator. But he knew better than to point that out to Bekov. The man wasn’t interested in practicality, only results.

Lev shook his head as his pen traced the figures. Bekov had the IPFS node right there in the tower, the crown jewel of pre-collapse tech, yet it sat dormant. Lev had to admit the setup looked impressive at a glance—servers crammed into makeshift racks, linked to a generator that roared like a beast on its last legs.

He frowned and scratched a line through his latest calculation. Even if they got the generator running steadily, it wouldn’t matter. It was a closed system, a stranded island in a dead ocean. The satellites that once maintained the network’s reach had likely fallen out of orbit or been repurposed, and the ground stations, if they still existed, were too distant to establish a direct link. Without a makeshift relay or access to a portable laser uplink, reconnecting would be nearly impossible.

He could practically hear Bekov’s gravelly roar echoing in his ears: “Fix that thing, or I’ll feed you to the dogs.” As if the node were something you could just patch up with duct tape and a handful of scavenged parts.

And yet, Lev felt the nagging pull of ‘what if…’; the temptation to try was always there, no matter how impossible it looked.

He stared at the tower for a moment longer, frustration tightening his chest. A relic from the days when quantum breakthroughs had already reshaped the world, now reduced to a silent hunk of metal. In his mind’s eye, Bekov’s silhouette loomed against the crimson backdrop of the setting sun, his monstrous form outlined like a djinn waiting to be unleashed from its qumqum —a vessel barely containing the godlike power trapped within the tower’s photonic core.

Lev could almost picture it: data networks roaring back to life, stretching from the dusty plains of Samarkand to the ancient arteries of the Silk Road. Under Bekov’s command, it wouldn’t be a revival of progress, but a weaponized grid—a digital empire forged beneath the crushing weight of his ambition.

But what if Lev could build his own access in parallel, feigning loyalty to Bekov while secretly laying the groundwork for a backdoor into the node? The thought shot through him like a spark—dangerous, exhilarating. He could see it now: orchestrating the infrastructure, reviving the node’s capabilities, creating a network that spanned continents. It wouldn’t stop there. To maintain that power, he’d have to oversee every aspect, from security to expansion, turning himself into the kind of ruthless figure he loathed.

And still, Kamchatka loomed in his thoughts, a cold and distant promise. The abandoned submarine base, with its access to intact satellites, offered better odds than this dust-choked wasteland. It wouldn’t be easy, but the isolation of the far east might be his best hope to connect to the remnants of the old network.

Besides, Bekov would never figure it out on his own. Men like Lev, who had lived through the fall and carried the knowledge of a world where such technology had been built, were as distant from Bekov as 21st-century New York was from ancient Greece. Though they were only twenty years apart in age, the difference in their capabilities was a chasm. To Bekov, Lev was a tool—something to exploit in his pursuit of power. But to Lev, being here felt like a cruel twist of fate, a collision between two eras that had no business overlapping.

Bekov’s schemes felt like a vice, tightening with each passing day. Lev racked his brain for ways to escape but kept hitting the same wall. Maybe he could convince the warlord to let them drive back to Praxis under the guise of a supply run—except Bekov would never send them off alone. A lieutenant would ride along, a man too experienced to outmaneuver easily. Even if they somehow overpowered him, Lev couldn’t shake the suspicion that Praxis was already gone.

No, that plan would unravel from the start. Bekov would demand collateral—Mina, most likely—holding her hostage to guarantee Lev’s return. The thought twisted his gut, but the only alternative was staying here, tethered to a failing dream and a man who’d already begun sharpening his knives.

He wondered how Ika was faring. All alone, what chance did she have against the Tethered? The odds were stacked against her, and he hated to admit it, but hope felt like a fool’s errand. Even if they hadn’t caught her, what could a simple veterinarian possibly do to revive a city like Praxis? If she’d succeeded, surely the rogues would’ve caught wind of it by now.[A1]

Lev pressed his notepad flat against the dusty hood of the Humvee. A breeze tugged at the pages, threatening to scatter his hastily scribbled calculations. He frowned, trying to appear focused on the numbers. The guards were watching. He could feel their eyes on him whenever he paused to rub out an error.

Across the yard, Mina hovered. Lev forced himself to make a broad, exaggerated gesture in her direction, as though instructing her to continue some routine survey. It was all part of the so-called plan he’d been ignoring ever since Mina started talking—if the guards believed he was just issuing orders, they might leave them alone. Still, he couldn’t shake the uneasy knot coiling in his stomach.

Deep down, he knew his plan would not come to fruition—that Mina had already convinced him.

With a glance over his shoulder, Lev saw her slip over to a line of battered vehicles, trailing her fingers along one scuffed fender after another. She moved methodically, pausing just long enough at each truck to make it look convincing. Finally, she stopped beside a heavy-duty transport, its tires bald and its hood propped open by a rusted rod.

Lev glanced at a nearby guard, whose expression remained unchanged. Good. He shifted his focus back to the numbers on his notepad—a rough estimate of repair costs scrawled in haste. The sum looked absurd, but it didn’t matter. No one here seemed to understand numbers well enough to question it anyway.

He called out, pitching his voice so the guard could hear, “Mark down anything that’s beyond salvage!”

Mina caught his eye. There was something in her look, a quick flicker of intention. She tapped the truck’s dented side, her touch nearly silent.

She drifted back to Lev’s side, leaning in close so only he could hear. “That last one’s operational,” she whispered. “Just like I thought—they’ve got a backup. We’re leaving tonight.”

Lev felt the weight of her revelation settle in his gut. He scanned the courtyard, noting the guards stationed along the perimeter. Machine guns slung across their backs, shamshirs in hand. They paced with the steady, rehearsed movements of men who’d done this a thousand times before. A lone sentry in the corner watchtower stood motionless, watching over the compound. Any wrong move, and a bullet would follow.

He turned back to Mina, disbelief creeping into his voice. “Are you serious? You’re crazy. Now who’s the idiot?”

“Rude. And here I thought you were the gentleman.” She smirked. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk to a woman like that. While you’ve been stressing and scribbling on that notepad of yours for the last few days, I’ve been watching.” She nodded subtly toward the watchtower. “Their routines. Their shifts. Tonight, there’s an opening.”

“An opening? What are you talking about?”

“Every night, the guards change shifts at midnight. There’s a gap—five minutes, maybe a little more—when the south gate is barely covered. I’ve watched them for days, Lev. If we time it right, we can grab the backup truck and make a run for it. They’ll still have a shot at us, but with that gap, our chances will be better than nothing. By the time they figure out what’s happening, we’ll already be moving fast enough that hitting us will be a lot harder.”

Lev just stared at her. He was tired. Tired of surviving, tired of constantly calculating his odds, tired of being hunted. And yet, something inside him stirred. He’d been here before. Maybe not in a dusty motor pool surrounded by armed henchmen, but back in Praxis—when he and Ika had fought the Tethered. They hadn’t known if they’d make it out alive, but they had taken the risk anyway. Sometimes, it came down to that. A one-shot plan.

“You really think we can pull it off?”

Mina smiled. “It’s either that, or we wait around for Bekov to figure out that his precious computer system is a glorified paperweight, and then who knows what he’ll do to us.”

Lev knew they didn’t have a better option. As much as he hated leaving any technical challenge unfinished—a part of him wondering if maybe, just maybe, gaining access to the IPFS here, despite how impossible it looked on paper, might accelerate his own plans—he had to accept reality.

The only way out was through.

The plan was haphazard at best, a desperate gamble. But Mina’s conviction left him little room to argue. Her quiet confidence, the way she had pieced together the guard’s shifts and found an opening—it was the kind of street smarts Lev had always admired. He had no illusions about what was coming.

He was still trying to digest the play-by-play when the guard rotation began. It was now or never.

Mina moved with purpose, her eyes locked on the armored Humvee they had chosen. As the shadows deepened around the courtyard, she made a signal with her hand, pointing toward one of the guards approaching.

“Wait here,” she whispered.

Lev stayed behind, his heart pounding, every muscle on high alert as Mina slipped into the shadows. He watched in stunned silence as she moved like a ghost, approaching the first guard without making a sound. When she got close enough, she ducked low, using the man’s momentum against him, sending him crashing into the ground. Lev had no idea what he’d just witnessed, but before the guard could recover, Mina had his rifle in her hands.

Quickly, she slung the rifle onto her back. She clamped a hand over the guard’s mouth and nose, cutting off any chance of a yell. In one swift motion, she twisted his arm behind him, leveraging his weight to snap his neck cleanly. Lev winced at the sound but knew they couldn’t afford to leave loose ends.

“Kurash!” she called out with a smirk, barely breaking her stride. “You’ve never heard of it?”

Lev shook his head, still too stunned to speak.

Mina had already moved, pointing the gun at the watchtower. She squeezed the trigger and sent a volley of bullets toward the sentry above.

Her shot was enough to send the remaining guards scrambling for cover. Lev didn’t waste time. He grabbed a canister of fuel from the side of one of the supply trucks, rushing to fill the Humvee’s tank. His hands shook as he fumbled with the cap, adrenaline making everything seem both slow and too fast. He threw the canister into the trunk alongside an old solar generator they’d scavenged earlier, not caring whether it was even functional. They needed to go. Now.

“Mina!” he shouted. “Let’s go!”

She sprinted toward him, firing the last rounds from her magazine. Lev heard the distinctive click as the bolt locked back, signaling the rifle was empty. She tossed the now-useless weapon into the backseat. Just as she reached the door, a gunshot whizzed past him, missing by inches. Lev didn’t have time to track where it hit, but the roar of an explosion behind him answered the question. The supply truck must have taken the bullet. Flames erupted, and through the smoke, a massive figure emerged. Lev’s heart sank.

Bekov.

The warlord moved with an unnatural calm. His bare chest gleamed in the firelight, muscles rippling with every step. A sword with a sweeping curve was strapped to his back, its sharp arc menacing. A rifle hung beside it. In one swift motion, Bekov closed the distance and grabbed Lev by the throat, slamming him onto the ground with the force of a bull.

The air left Lev’s lungs in a single, painful gasp. Bekov sneered down at him, his face close, his hot breath ghosting over Lev’s skin. “I offered you a place in my court. A chance to change the world. And this is how you repay me?” His grip tightened as he growled the words, his eyes burning with contempt. “You are a coward, and now you’ll be made an example of.”

Bekov straightened to his full height, pulling the sword from his back in one fluid motion and raising it high above his head, the firelight glinting off the cold steel. This was it. Lev stared at the blade as it hovered for the briefest second, knowing the end was about to fall. All the planning, all the calculations—they meant nothing now.

There was a flash at the edge of Lev’s vision. The old woman from the warlord’s den—no, Lev recognized her from the cell, one and the same—emerged from the darkness like a wraith. With surprising swiftness, she raised a wooden staff and brought it down on Bekov’s head. The warlord staggered, his eyes wide with shock as he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

For a moment, Lev couldn’t believe what had happened. Then the old woman turned to him, sorrow flickering across her features. “He’s forgotten everything his family stood for,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “This is exactly how his grandfather would have disciplined him—now go, before he wakes.”

Before Lev could thank her, a gunshot rang out. The old crone gasped, her body jerking as a bullet tore through her chest. One of Bekov’s guards had fired from the watchtower. She collapsed beside Lev, her lifeless body crumpling into the dust.

Lev’s heart hammered as more shots struck the ground near his feet, kicking up plumes of dirt. Between dodging the barrage, he lunged forward, yanking the rifle from Bekov’s back—the very weapon the warlord could have used to kill him but had chosen to forgo in favor of theatrics, the idiot. Another shot whizzed past his ear, so close he could feel its heat.

“Mina!” Lev shouted, scrambling to his feet. “Get the engine started! Now!”

Mina was in the driver’s seat, her hands fumbling with the controls. “I—I don’t know how to turn this thing on!”

Lev’s stomach lurched as he slid into the passenger seat, quickly placing the rifle on the dashboard. “What do you mean? Just engage the clutch!”

“I thought I could!” Mina’s voice cracked, her hands shaking on the wheel. “It’s more complicated than I—"

Lev threw his hands up in disbelief. “You’re some secret martial artist, but you can’t drive stick?”

Mina shot him a look, her face flushed. “I wasn’t exactly trained for Humvees, Lev!”

Before Lev could respond, a sharp crack echoed through the vehicle as a bullet slammed into the windshield, splintering on impact. The reinforced glass held, spiderwebs spreading across it but not shattering. The shot left a ringing in Lev’s ears as he glanced at the fractured glass.

Lev shouted, “Move!” yanking her from the seat. As Mina scrambled past, her shoulder brushed against his, and a familiar scent—faint but unmistakable—lingered in the air. The smell of lilacs drifted from her neck, pulling him back to that small room where she had let him rest, and to the jacaranda trees his mother had planted in Abu Sir, their blossoms tangled in Alima’s hair. Despite everything, the memory anchored him to what he had to do next.

Lev hated driving. He hated it more than anything in the world. It was archaic, too manual, too much left to chance. The thought of it twisted like a knife—one wrong move, one moment of distraction, and it could all end in a crash. Machines were supposed to handle the calculations, not humans. How many innocents had been lost to a drunken split-second mistake? How many like his daughter?

He gritted his teeth, gripping the wheel. There was no room for hesitation. He engaged the clutch and shifted into first gear. The engine roared beneath him, the tires screeching against the ground as the Humvee surged forward, the force pushing him back into the seat.

Bullets pinged off the vehicle’s armor as they sped toward the south gate. Lev’s knuckles whitened as he clenched the wheel, his heart pounding in his chest.

The heavy iron gate loomed ahead, a massive slab secured with rusted chains and a thick padlock—the only barrier between them and freedom.

“Mina, the rifle!” Lev barked, eyes darting between the gate and the narrowing expanse before them. “There’s no time!”

Mina peered out the window, scanning the turmoil outside before grabbing Bekov’s rifle from the dashboard, her hands shaking. “What am I even aiming at?”

“The lock! Shoot the lock!” Lev shouted, swerving to avoid another spray of bullets. “We need to break it open!”

She fired. The first shot missed, sparking off the metal frame. Lev veered sharply, narrowly dodging a barrier.

“You’ve got this, Mina!”

She fired again. This time, the bullet struck true, shattering the padlock.

This is it, Lev thought. “Hold on!”

He floored the accelerator, gripping the wheel as the Humvee barreled toward the gate. The heavy metal buckled under the impact, the reinforced bumper plowing through with a deafening crash. The windshield shattered instantly, a spray of glass exploding inward. Lev instinctively raised an arm to shield his face, feeling sharp shards biting into his skin. For a heart-stopping moment, the vehicle slowed, metal grinding against metal, but then they burst through, fragments of the gate clattering around them.

They were out.

Lev’s hands trembled as he steered, the Humvee’s tires kicking up dust, blood trickling from small cuts on his fingers. The cool night air rushed in through the shattered windshield, whipping against their faces. The engine hummed beneath them.

He glanced over at Mina, worry tightening his chest. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, brushing glass from her lap. A thin scratch traced her cheek, but her eyes were steady. “I’m fine. You?”

“Yeah,” he said, though the shaking in his hands betrayed how close everything had come to falling apart. His pulse hadn’t settled yet, and gripping the wheel sent sharp stings through his palms where glass shards had embedded themselves. But when he looked at Mina—bruised, exhausted, yet composed—he realized just how much he’d depended on her being there, not just in the firefight but through everything.

“We made it,” he said, his voice quieter now, like the words themselves were something fragile.

Mina’s gaze rested on him, her usual probing expression softening. “We did,” she said, as if surprised by the truth of it. She reached out and brushed a shard of glass from his sleeve, her fingers hovering briefly over his arm before the Humvee jolted over uneven ground. She steadied herself against the door and, after a moment, her hand returned to his.

Lev glanced down, noticing the blood seeping from his cuts. Flexing his fingers, he winced at the sting. Mina’s eyes followed his movements. “You’re bleeding,” she said.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, barely registering the pain now. “It’s nothing,” he muttered.

Without a word, Mina tore a strip from the hem of her shirt and wrapped it around his free hand.

For a moment, their eyes met, neither looking away.

Lev broke the silence first, tearing his gaze back to the road. The shattered windshield made visibility difficult, and he leaned forward, scanning the desert bathed in an unnatural brightness. Both moons hung full in the sky, their alignment intensifying the glow and washing out the stars. The smaller one, The Stone, loomed unnervingly close—a satellite launched by the Chinese during the Great War. Its simulated surface of craters and regolith still orbited like a ghost of the past.

Some said the monstrosity had flooded the Nile, drowning the lands he once called home. Lev remembered the panic—the rising waters, the eerie glow—and the chaos that followed. Samarkand had been spared, it seemed, its altitude keeping the tides at bay, though they were fortunate it hadn’t been disrupted in other ways.

Squinting against the haze, Lev scanned the sky until he finally spotted Perseus hanging low on the northeastern horizon, its stars scattered like a distant crown. He locked his gaze on that faint, familiar shape, steering toward its silent, guiding presence as they raced into the endless expanse.

Behind them, the fires of Samarkand flickered and shrank, the gunfire swallowed by the howling desert wind. Lev knew, and he knew Mina did too—they wouldn’t be chased. One stolen vehicle wasn’t worth the trouble. The warlord’s men had a city to control, and too much to lose chasing fugitives into the wasteland. They’d probably figured the desert would finish the job for them.

Mina sank back into her seat, her breaths heavy. “Did we just—”

“Yeah,” Lev muttered, still catching his own.

Despite everything—the danger, the madness—they were alive. Lev flexed his bandaged hand, the makeshift wrap already spotted with blood, but the pain was a distant echo, drowned out by the adrenaline still coursing through him.

He stole another glance at Mina. Her hair whipped around her face, and she was squinting ahead, her jaw set with determination. Even with the scratch on her cheek and exhaustion shadowing her eyes, she looked calm, composed—like the chaos around them hadn’t touched her. Lev couldn’t help but wonder how she managed to stay that way. Was it just the way she was, or was there something deeper?

“Not bad for getting us through that mess,” he said.

“Not bad for an old man who thinks he’s a barbarian.”

Lev chuckled, the tension in his chest easing. “Fair point.”

They drove in silence for a while, the Humvee’s engine the only sound in the vastness around them.

Mina shifted in her seat, wincing as she brushed more glass from her hair. “So, Kamchatka?”

“Kamchatka,” Lev said.

“Then I guess we’re headed the same way.”

“You don’t even know why I’m going there.”

She leaned back, closing her eyes. “I haven’t been to the Altai in a decade, and we’ll be passing through... Besides, does it matter? I’m a wanted woman, and I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

Lev nodded, feeling solidarity in her words. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?” she asked.

“For saving my life. More than once, I think.”

She shrugged, eyes still closed. “Can’t let you have all the fun.”

Lev turned his attention back to the horizon. Low, rugged hills began to rise in the distance, and the faint shadow of the mountains beyond broke the endless stretch of the steppe. His hands still stung, but the sensation reminded him he was alive, still moving forward.

The next stop would be Almaty. He could only hope the people there, if there were any, were kinder than those they’d left behind. He glanced at the fuel gauge, wondering how far the stolen gas would take them. But that was a problem for later—right now, he didn’t want to think about it.

He looked at Mina again. Her face, softened in sleep, was peaceful. It struck him—this was the first time he’d seen her truly resting since all of this began.

“Figures you’d take the easy part,” he muttered, adjusting his grip on the wheel with his left. Her hand, still resting on his right, grounded him as he steered. The barren desert stretched on before them, vast and unbroken.

A tear slipped down his cheek, the taste of salt sharp on his tongue. He laughed. No food. No water. And still, his body found something to give.

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