The air gets thicker, grittier, as we push into a badly damaged zone. I can taste metal and ash on my tongue. The radmeters click a steady beat, not quite alarming but not comforting either. The ruins around us have twisted, as if in agony. It’s been difficult at times to know if we’re staying south of the 91, and out of Southlord territory, but Mensa has assured us we’re good. We’d literally be lost without him.

“We’ve reached a double zone,” Mensa announces, a faint mechanical echo in his voice. “The moderate fallout zones of the LAX crater and Carson refinery overlap here, increasing cumulative damage.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Flint mutters, sliding his machete under his pack to scratch his back.

As we crest a pile of collapsed asphalt, Mensa’s synthetic voice pipes up again. “I believe that ruined structure ahead is the Galleria at South Bay,” he announces. “Once a popular retail destination.”

“The hell’s a Galleria?” Flint asks.

“It’s a mall,” I say with some excitement. “We should check it out. Could be some good salvage there.”

Grant shakes his head sharply. His voice is clear and cutting, the way it gets when he’s shutting down debate before it starts. “That thing’s a wreck. Maybe a little less damaged than the Fox Hills Mall, but still a wreck. We need to keep moving. We’ve got a mission.”

Staying focused has been his thing since we left Century. No one really questions him when he gets like this, but it doesn’t stop my jaw from tightening. “Fine,” I mutter, not wanting to cause a scene. But for some reason, the Galleria is still calling me.

We circle south around the ruins, so there’s no danger of crossing north over the 91. Piles of wreckage—chunks of drywall, twisted rebar, and the occasional abandoned vehicle—force us to weave like ants through a maze.

“Hold up.” Zara’s voice cuts through the silence. She’s crouched, her binoculars up, not looking at us.

“What is it?” Grant asks.

Zara lowers the binoculars and says, “Activity. In the Galleria ruins.”

I snap my head toward the ruins, but can’t see anything from here. “What kind of activity?”

She pauses, scanning again. “Reavers. Looks like they’re excavating.”

Grant’s brow furrows. “Excavating?”

Zara squints through the binoculars. “They may have found a blast gate. Hard to tell from here.”

I feel my pulse racing. “If there’s a shelter there, that’s a major find.”

Grant sighs. “I’m aware of that.” He exhales in slow, deliberate frustration. “Alright,” he concedes. “We take a closer look. But we do not engage with the reavers.”

We fan out as we approach the ruins, weapons drawn. The reavers are just ragged silhouettes on the uneven terrain now, little more than twitching shadows against the gutted mall structure. Their heads turn in our direction. They must have a scout out here somewhere.

Seeing they’re outgunned, the small group of reavers bolt, disappearing into the ruined city north of the mall, and likely north of the 91. Good luck to them there.

“Pussies,” Flint scoffs, watching them vanish.

“Stay alert,” Grant warns, motioning us forward.

I study the blast gate, maybe fifty yards ahead now. Tucked into the side of the sprawling rubble, it barely catches the feeble daylight. The yellow-painted xenosteel is scorched around the edges, and the gate appears to be sealed, which is damned rare.

I confirm that as we reach the blast gate. “Still sealed. Slammin’. There could be survivors in there!”

Flint shakes his head. “Doubtful. Most shelters only had 10 years of supplies. So anyone still in there has been eating tastypaste for the last 43 years. And where would they get the mass for the reprocessor? They’d be tossing in chairs by now.”

He’s right, of course. But still…

I look at the sealed gate, imagining skeletal hands clawing on the other side as rations dwindle. “We have to get in there.”

Seraph nods in agreement.

Flint also nods. “I say we do it for the loot.”

With no objections from Grant, I remove my electronics kit from my backpack and crouch down beside the shelter’s intercom panel, running my fingers over the cracked case, showing a dead power light.

“These blast gates aren’t designed to be opened from the outside,” I tell the team. “So our best bet is to get this intercom working and try to communicate with anyone inside.”

Fortunately, this unit is a standard model, which I know very well. I use my tools to open the case, suspecting what I’m going to find.

Sure enough, the cracked case let water in that shorted out the system. I can fix most of it with the stuff in my kit, but one big problem remains.

“Well?” Grant’s standing over me, arms crossed.

“The copper wire in the voice coil is too badly corroded to save. I can get the power back, but I’ll also need to replace that coil. The wire I have is too thick, and there’s not enough of it. Our best bet is to salvage a coil from something else, like a telephone.”

I scan the hulking ruins of the Galleria. “Old malls like this often had a Radio Shack, or at least some phones we could salvage a coil from.”

“You want to go digging through that deathtrap?” Flint gestures at the crumbling structure.

“We need to know what’s in this shelter.” I stand up, brushing dust from my knees. “Could be survivors. Could be supplies. Could be nothing. But we won’t know unless we get this comm working.”

Grant studies the ruins, his jaw tensing. I can see him weighing the risks against the potential payoff. Finally, he checks his watch.

“One hour,” he says. “But we stick together. And if we haven’t found what you need by then, we move on. Clear?”

I nod thankfully, already plotting our search pattern.

☢

The Galleria mall sprawls before us like a giant concrete carcass. The roof has collapsed, and shafts of sunlight pierce the cracks in the scorched walls. Our footsteps crunch on weed-choked debris as we move deeper into the ruins.

I don’t like it here. The mall feels threatening, all unstable angles eager to collapse on us.

“Directory,” I say with sudden excitement, pointing to a faded board mounted on a pillar. Amazing that it survived the damage. Most of the store names are illegible, but I can make out “…Shack” near the bottom. “Radio Shack was on the first floor, south end.”

Grant nods. “Lead on. But watch your step.”

We pick our way through the wreckage, staying close to the walls where the floor feels more solid. My eyes scan constantly for phones or electronics, but mostly I see torn clothing, broken mannequins, and scattered debris. The place has been picked clean by decades of scavengers.

“Twenty minutes left,” Grant announces quietly.

Sweat trickles down my back despite the cool air. We need that voice coil. Those survivors could be counting on us, even if they don’t know it yet.

A familiar logo catches my eye, the remains of a Radio Shack sign on the floor. But the wall here has completely collapsed, and the store is buried under tons of concrete. It’s a no go.

Exasperated, I run my fingers through my hair. I turn in place, scanning the ruins, desperate for a lead.

“I’m gonna call it,” Grant says. “We need to get back on the road.”

“Fuck!” I shout in exasperation. “Not one phone in this whole goddamned mall?”

Zara, who has climbed a pile of debris, calls down to us. “Found something up here.”

My heart leaps with hope, and I scramble up to her. I help her move some ceiling tiles off a desk, and there it is! An intact telephone, avocado green.

“I could kiss you,” I tell Zara.

She grins, giving me a wink.

“Cover!” Seraph’s voice cracks through the air like a whip.

I drop behind the desk, drawing my gun. What the fuck? I was so distracted by the phone, I didn’t feel trouble coming. Or did I? I think back to my general unease when we entered the place. Maybe I should have paid attention.

A shout splits the thick, stifling air—a guttural war cry that raises the hairs on my arms. Suddenly, there’s no time to think, no time to process the dread curling in my gut.

I see reavers. More of them than any of us could have imagined. Shapes spill from shadows with snarling faces. The ones we chased away from the gate must have had friends. A crap-ton of friends.