The air inside Dome-7 tasted like rust and regret. Kael crouched in the maintenance shaft, his fingers prying at a tangle of wires older than his twenty-two years. The reactor’s hum was weaker today, a faltering heartbeat that made his stomach twist. He adjusted his headlamp, its beam cutting through the dark to reveal a corroded circuit panel. “Come on, you relic,” he muttered, swapping a frayed fuse with one he’d salvaged from a junk pile. The panel sparked, then steadied, and the hum grew stronger. Kael exhaled, wiping sweat from his brow. Another day bought for the dome’s 3,000 souls.

He climbed out of the shaft, dusting off his patched jacket, and made his way to the surface level. The dome’s glass ceiling arched above, streaked with ash that never stopped falling. Beyond it, the sky was a churning gray, swallowing any hint of the sun. Kael didn’t know what sunlight felt like—nobody under fifty did—but he’d seen pictures in the archives. Golden fields, blue oceans. Lies, probably.

At the market square, stalls peddled scavenged goods: rusted tools, synthetic rations, and bits of pre-Crash tech nobody knew how to use. Kael spotted Mira at her usual spot, hunched over a table littered with maps. Her dark hair was tied back, her eyes scanning a parchment as if it held the world’s secrets. “Still chasing ghosts?” Kael called, leaning against her stall.

Mira didn’t look up. “Ghosts don’t leave coordinates.” She tapped a grid on her map, marked with a red X. “Found something in the archives last night. A signal log from before the Crash. It mentions a place called Horizon.”

Kael snorted. “Horizon’s a bedtime story. A city with endless power? If it existed, someone would’ve found it by now.”

“Then explain this.” Mira slid a data-pad across the table. Its cracked screen flickered, displaying a waveform—a repeating pulse, timestamped three days ago. “I picked it up on an old comms tower. It’s coming from 400 klicks north, past the Dead Plains.”

Kael’s smirk faded. Signals were rare. Most satellites died decades ago, and the wasteland’s storms scrambled anything weaker than a military broadcast. “Could be a glitch. Or a trap.”

“Or it’s real,” Mira said, her voice sharp with hope. “I’m going to find it, Kael. With or without you.”

He wanted to argue, to tell her the wasteland ate dreamers like her. But the data-pad’s pulse kept blinking, steady as a heartbeat, and something in his gut stirred. Not hope—Kael didn’t deal in that—but curiosity. “You’d need a rig to cross the Plains. And a guide who knows tech.”

Mira’s eyes lit up. “You’re in?”

“I’m not out,” he said, crossing his arms. “But we need more than maps and optimism. The Plains have ferals. Storms. Worse.”

“I know someone,” Mira said. “Torm. Ex-soldier, runs salvage runs beyond the dome. He’s rough, but he’s survived out there.”

Kael grimaced. Torm was a name whispered in bars, usually followed by words like “brutal” or “unhinged.” But if anyone could navigate the wasteland, it was him. “Fine. Set it up. But if this signal’s a bust, you owe me a month’s rations.”

Mira grinned, rolling up her map. “Deal.”

That night, they met Torm in a dive bar carved into Dome-7’s lower levels. The air was thick with smoke and the tang of recycled liquor. Torm sat alone, his broad frame dwarfing the booth. Scars crisscrossed his shaved head, and his left arm—cybernetic from the elbow down—gleamed under the dim lights. “You’re the map girl,” he grunted, eyeing Mira. “And you’re the fixer.” His gaze shifted to Kael, unreadable.

Mira slid the data-pad toward him. “We’re chasing a signal. North, past the Plains. We need a guide.”

Torm studied the waveform, his metal fingers tapping the table. “Dead Plains ain’t a stroll. Ferals hunt in packs. Storms’ll strip your skin. And there’s rumors of… other things. You sure this signal’s worth it?”

“It’s from Horizon,” Mira said.

Torm laughed, a harsh bark. “Horizon’s a myth. But I’ll take you—for a price. Half your salvage, and I get first pick of any tech we find.”

Kael bristled. “That’s robbery.”

“That’s survival,” Torm shot back. “Take it or walk.”

Mira nodded before Kael could argue. “Done. We leave tomorrow.”

As they left the bar, Kael grabbed Mira’s arm. “You trust him?”

“No,” she said. “But I trust the signal. You in, or you out?”

Kael sighed, glancing at the dome’s ash-streaked ceiling. “In. But when this goes south, don’t blame me.”

The next morning, they gathered at Dome-7’s eastern gate. Kael had rigged a solar-powered rover from scrap, its chassis creaking but functional. Mira packed her maps and a comms unit, while Torm hauled a crate of weapons—rifles, knives, and something that looked like a plasma torch. As the gate groaned open, revealing the wasteland’s gray expanse, Kael felt a chill that wasn’t just the wind.

The Dead Plains stretched before them, a sea of cracked earth and twisted metal. Somewhere out there, a signal pulsed, promising answers—or ruin. Kael tightened his grip on the rover’s wheel. “Let’s move.”

Chapter 1: The Signal

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