Chapter 1
918words
The wind in Detroit always carries two things—particles of iron rust and radiation dust that never seems to wash away.
Jack Steele crouched on the broken tracks of the Rust Belt Corridor, his nostrils filled with the acrid smell of corroding metal mingled with the sour stench of mutant rat carcasses in the distance. Ten years after the "Great Burning," and this remained the unchanging undertone of the wasteland.
The concrete beneath him was scratched and scarred, its "Radiation Safe Zone" marking—cobbled together from broken lead paint cans—had long since faded. Only the edges retained some white lead, like a cheap frame around this muddy patch of ground.
Nearby, three Scavengers were fighting over half a moldy loaf of bread. One of them—a man so emaciated he was practically just skin stretched over bone—had the telltale fluorescent pus of Phosphorescence Syndrome oozing from the back of his hand.
A "souvenir" he'd picked up yesterday in the Chicago ruins, now pulsing with an eerie glow in rhythm with his labored breathing.
Jack Steele clutched the compressed biscuit against his chest. The packaging was worn fuzzy, the "FEMA Emergency Supply" stamp barely legible anymore, but this was his only food for the next three days.
He needed to trade it for a working radiation dosimeter—his sister Lily's Phosphorescence Syndrome was getting worse. Last night, he'd spotted tiny fluorescent particles in her phlegm. Without a dosimeter, he had no clue which buffer zone might offer her safe shelter.
"Wanna trade?" The old man behind the stall tapped the metal box in front of him—a military-grade dosimeter with numbers still flickering on its screen. "Range of 0.8 Sv/hour. Enough for you to roam the suburbs for half a day. Half a biscuit, not a crumb less."
Jack Steele said nothing, just broke off a corner of the biscuit to reveal its yellowish core. Pre-war military rations with a fifteen-year shelf life—now worth more than gold.
The old man's eyes lit up instantly, his hand darting forward to grab it, when a heated argument nearby interrupted them.
"That thing isn't yours to monopolize!" A man in a dark gray radiation suit slammed his detector onto the ground, his voice seething with rage behind his mask. "That machine in Colorado can cure radiation sickness! What right do you have keeping it just for you underground parasites?"
Jack Steele's ears pricked up immediately. He edged backward, concealing himself behind an overturned truck. The angry man wore the distinctive gear of a Tech Hunter, with a torn "Los Alamos" badge on his sleeve.
The two people facing him wore the standard uniforms of shelter survivors, with "No. 79" emblazoned on their chests. Their shoulder plates still bore dark stains from the Black Rain.
"The Purification Station's access is controlled by shelter leadership. It's not for scavenger dogs like you to question."
The shelter survivor raised his gun slightly. "Keep pushing, and we'll process you as radiation contamination."
The Tech Hunter cursed and turned to leave, but the wind caught a note from his pocket and sent it fluttering away.
He didn't notice as he stormed off, disappearing into the ruins at the corridor's end. While the shelter dwellers were distracted, Jack crouched low and darted forward, snatching the paper from the ground.
The paper was rough—torn from the edge of some pre-war blueprint—with just a single line scrawled across it: Exl Terra, Colorado, 39°44′N.
Suddenly, the sky darkened.
Not from clouds—but from Black Rain.
"Shit! Filters out!" someone shouted, and the market erupted into chaos. Jack had no time to examine the note as he yanked his Zeolite Filter from his backpack—a pouch sewn from old jeans filled with grayish-white particles that filtered cesium from the Black Rain.
He held the filter above his head as cold raindrops struck his hands, each carrying that faint metallic taste—the most vile gift from the "Gray Frost Period."
In the chaos, the old man snatched the biscuit from Jack's hand and tossed him the dosimeter: "Lucky bastard! Next time you want to trade, bring Iodine Tablets!"
Jack caught the dosimeter, its metal casing cold against his skin. The screen showed a stable reading of 0.3 Sv/hour—this area was relatively safe, at least.
He tucked the note into his inner pocket, close to his heart where he could still feel the warmth from his sister's hand last night—frail, yet gripping with desperate will to live.
Colorado. Machines that could treat radiation sickness. Exl Terra.
The words turned in his mind like rusty gears finally catching and beginning to turn together.
He looked up at the corridor through the Black Rain, where distant ruins blurred into shadows that resembled crouching monsters waiting to pounce.
But Jack wasn't afraid. Lily was waiting for him, and if saving her meant venturing into the epicenter zone itself, so be it.
He gripped the dosimeter tight, wrung the Black Rain from his filter into his canteen, and turned to walk out of the corridor.
Raindrops fell on his tattered coat, leaving dark imprints like stamps the wasteland pressed onto every survivor's back.
