By dawn, the rain had stopped. The air hung heavy with static, the scent of ozone clinging to the earth.
Nyla crouched beside Talgat as his handheld scanner pulsed pale green over the ruined ground. Its readings flickered erratically.
"Nothing," he muttered, tapping the side of the device. "It's like the terrain's eating the signal."
Korren approached from behind, silent as the shifting dust. "Not eating," he said. "Bending."
Nyla frowned, adjusting her scope. The land ahead shimmered faintly—heat mirage where there should be cold air.
"Visual distortion?" she murmured. "Like a hologram?"
Korren shook his head. "More than that. A projection overlay—AI-maintained. The air's thick with ionized particles refracting light and sound. Old-world stealth architecture."
He knelt, brushing a gloved hand across the cracked ground. "See those pinholes? Drone emitters. Buried and networked. They project a full-spectrum illusion grid powered by thorium microcells. Adaptive recalibration every few milliseconds."
Talgat watched him. "You're saying someone kept it running? For centuries?"
Korren's thin smile returned. "Someone… or something smart enough to maintain it. A veil like this doesn't survive without active correction. It's being fed data—constantly."
He drew a knife from his belt and threw it into the shimmer. The blade vanished midair with a faint pop—and seconds later, dropped two meters away, the edge warped and smoking.
"Phase refraction layer," Korren said quietly. "Not a wall. A curtain. It converts everything behind it into optical noise and dead EM return. To sensors, it's void. To human eyes—just dust."
Nyla swallowed. "So that's why the scavengers disappear. They walk straight through it."
Korren nodded. "And now we know where."
He stood, wiping rain from his brow. His voice dropped to a whisper. "We'll find the seam where the field refreshes. When it resets, we move through before the AI stabilizes the cycle."
He turned to the others. "But not tonight. Let them think they're untouchable one more day."
As he walked back toward camp, the horizon glowed faint blue—like the breath of something vast and dreaming beneath the surface.
Nyla watched Talgat watching him, both silent in the fading storm.
Finally, she said, "You think he ever sleeps?"
Talgat didn't answer. His eyes stayed fixed on the shimmer ahead.
"If he does," he murmured, "I don't think he dreams."