Katherine had travelled on foot for several days through ice and snow. She had lived in the area ever since she first started her residency at the local hospital.
Naturally, she had heard of the suburban developnt known as Paradise Falls and knew of its location.
It had taken her longer to reach the area on foot than she had anticipated. After all, she had to ensure she wasn’t spotted by the marauding war band that was targeting the neighborhood.
And after arriving just outside the periter of the housing developnt, she found that the bandits had already taken up camp and surrounded the area.
If it hadn’t been for so many ruined structures that had collapsed beneath the snowstorm, she likely would have been spotted while watching their movents.
There was no doubt about it; their patrols were weakest at night. The temperature dropped significantly when the world was at its darkest. At those hours, only a few n went out to patrol the periter of Paradise Falls, usually in small scouting groups.
Tonight, Katherine dared to slip through those patrol routes.
She kept her body low, moving through the treeline with careful, asured steps. It was then that she heard echoes of gunfire in the distance.
The mont she heard the blast she fell flat into the snow and covered her head. Not because she was wounded, but because her body reacted before her mind could.
The shots had been tight, controlled, almost uniform. Then there was nothing but silence on her end.
She lay there, heart pounding, counting her breaths. When nothing followed, she forced herself to rise again.
A second burst cracked through the air. Again she dropped, face first into the snow, eyes clenched shut, hands over her head.
But once more, there was no follow-up, no return fire, no chaos. That was what unsettled her.
She had not been around gunfire throughout her life so much as its aftermath. But her perception of gunfire instigated panic, and yet there was none.
Mustering the courage, she advanced toward the sound. Whether it was curiosity or the instincts of a trauma surgeon who could not ignore violence, she forced herself forward.
And then she saw them.
n in uniform winter camouflage, body armor integrated cleanly, rifles shouldered in disciplined posture. They moved with cohesion, not swagger. Their spacing was asured. Their formation was intact.
They did not look like the marauders she had followed for days, nor did they look like survivors scrambling. They looked... structured. Like soldiers...
They marched back toward the residences without speaking. It was only after they disappeared from sight that Katherine stepped into the clearing.
And there she froze.
There were six bodies in total. Four were clearly from the marauding warband. She recognized their mismatched gear, their hunting camouflage, and their scavenged vests.
They were bound and gagged. And from the looks of their wound patterns executed at close range.
Her dical mind reacted before her thoughts.
The bullets were in tight groupings; the size of the chest cavities suggested rifle-caliber bullets. But not one she was familiar with treating. The spread was minimal, suggesting there had been no wild shots.
This was an execution perford by a firing squad; clean and intentional. There had been no attempt to save them, and no hesitation in the act.
She felt her throat tighten.
She had seen death countless tis in the ER. She had seen people bleed out, watched life slip away despite her hands fighting to keep it there.
But this was different; these n had not died in chaos, they had been processed. Their guilt was determined not by a court of law, nor had their sentence been given by the state. But by n who wielded rifles with surgical precision.
Despite the chilling nature of their deaths, these weren’t the corpses that haunted her. These n were clearly violent and dangerous people who bragged about preying on the innocent.
Her gaze shifted to the two other bodies that lay several ters away.
She couldn’t understand their deaths; they were most marauders by the look of it. They were clearly civilians. One man and one woman, bound the sa way and executed in the sa manner.
But they weren’t gagged. She couldn’t understand why, but the thought made her stomach churn. She didn’t recoil from the blood, no... she recoiled from the realization. Soone here had established law; and law now ca from the end of a barrel.
Before she could process further, branches shifted behind her.
"Just up here! I heard the gunfire from this direction!"
More marauders... No doubt looking for the n who lay dead at her feet.
Katherine’s decision ca without hesitation. Behind her were wolves who hunted the innocent. Ahead of her were sheepdogs who kept the wolves at bay, even if their thods were inhumane.
It wasn’t a moral choice; it was structural. She turned and ran toward the camouflaged soldiers who had just returned to Paradise Falls.
Dean stepped out of the hot tub fifteen minutes after Yuki had joined him. He had thought about much in that ti. About Avery. About Richard. About what had been done and what had been necessary.
And in that mont of reflection, he had buried the past with their bodies. He didn’t have the luxury of being sentintal.
Not anymore... the world was frozen over; each day would present a new struggle to his survival. And he could not second-guess whatever he needed to do to ensure that he and Yuki lived on.
He stepped into his room and imdiately noticed his radio vibrating in repeated bursts. Daniel’s callsign looped again and again. His voice wasn’t panicked, even after everything that had happened tonight. It was calm and controlled...
"Archon, this is the Lochagos-Alpha. Are you there? We have a situation that requires your presence. Over."
The ssage repeated.
Dean picked up the handset.
"This is Archon-Actual. Go ahead."
Daniel exhaled softly before responding.
"Phalanx-Alpha detained an unknown individual inside the periter. She’s clearly a civilian... I don’t believe she’s associated with the guys we ran into tonight."
There was a brief pause before Daniel finished his statent.
"The guys are... distracted."
Dean closed his eyes briefly. Of course.
These were teenage boys, ford into an ad hoc militia, weeks into collapse with at best one week of training.
He had accounted for discipline. But Dean had not fully factored for hormones under prolonged stress.
"Maintain security posture," Dean replied evenly. "Hold position. Phalanx-Beta covers the gap. I’m inbound."
He clipped the radio back into place.
As he pulled on his gear, his mind ran calculations.
There was an unknown female inside the periter. Alone and without an escort. Her background was limited.
She could be another raider scout. But the timing didn’t add up. They had just executed the enemy reconnaissance team within the hour. It would take longer to recover the bodies, determine a new plan, and send in an infiltrator.
The second option was the potential for her to be a refugee. But if that were the case, why was she alone and unard? How did she survive so long and find her way to this place? There were too many gaps in the story.
If she weren’t another scout, or a refugee, she could be bait. Potentially captured as innocent by the enemy, used as an intelligence asset to lower the guard of communities by pretending to be a refugee or an escaped captive?
Either way, Dean couldn’t think of anything other than her being a liability, whoever she was.
He replayed the execution site in his head: the gunfire earlier, the missing scouts, and now an infiltrator.
Despite the timing between these events being rapid, correlation was still probable. Coincidence, however, was highly unlikely.
He finished securing his vest.
The worst-case scenario was that this was inserted deliberately; while the best case was she had walked into a battlefield unaware.
Either way, the protocol was the sa: containnt first, assessnt second.
Yuki stepped into the hallway just as he exited his room.
"What happened?"
Dean didn’t slow.
"Unknown contact inside the periter. Stay inside and monitor the situation until I give confirmation otherwise. Lock interior routes and maintain communication by radio only."
She nodded imdiately, already shifting into operational mode.
Dean stepped into the snow where the cold once more hit him like a wall. He moved toward the patrol point, quiet, deliberate, and without rush.
Whatever this was, he would control it.
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