The room still smelled like smoke and fury when the door opened with a hydraulic hiss.
Adrain entered — tall, lean, half man, half machine. His left arm gleamed with matte-black plating, humming softly with the sound of hidden servos. The right hand, still flesh and bone, gripped a worn data slate stained with dried blood and ash.
He paused just inside the doorway, waiting. The Chief didn't even glance up.
"Sir… how about the baby?"
The words hung in the air like a spark above dry fuel.
The Chief slowly turned in his chair, eye locking onto Adrain's face with cold precision. He took a long drag of his cigar before speaking — voice rough as gravel dragged across rebar.
"There's something about that child."
He stood up, walked to the window — what was left of it. Reinforced glass, covered in soot, barely showed the ruins outside.
"I don't know what, not yet. But that baby survived the Wilds, the Dogs, and the Conclave's sweep squads. That kind of luck either comes from the gods… or from something darker."
He turned, eye narrowed.
"We keep him close. Very close. He may end up being of great value."
Adrain didn't argue — not yet. Instead, he stepped forward and placed the data slate down on the metal table.
"About the next target… the barracks outside Sector Nine. We were planning a hit."
The Chief nodded once, slow and calculating.
"It'll cripple their deployment speed for weeks. If we can take out their reserves—"
Adrain interrupted, his organic hand clenched tightly.
"Sir… we lost four hundred and five in the last ambush."
The room stilled.
"What?"
Adrain's jaw clenched. His mechanical fingers flexed and clicked.
"They weren't just regular troops. The Conclave's deploying something new — hybrid humans. Faster. Stronger. No empathy. Wired to obey. And trained with one objective."
The Chief turned fully now, the light of the overhead lamp burning in his eye.
"Extermination."
Adrain nodded grimly.
"They call them Scourges. And they're working in packs."
For a moment, there was nothing but the low hum of the bunker's systems.
Then, with a roar, the Chief brought his fist down on the table.
CLANG.
The steel dented under the blow. A long ripple shot down the edge, warping the surface like a crushed can.
"Damn it all!"
He paced like a caged wolf, coat swaying at his knees.
"Four hundred men. Gone. Just like that."
"We can't keep hitting them blind," Adrain said quietly. "We need better intel. Or more allies."
The Chief slammed his fist into the wall this time — a loud, jarring bang that sent dust raining from above.
"We are the allies, Adrain. No one's coming to save us. We're all that's left."
Adrain didn't flinch. Instead, he stared hard at the dented table.
"Then we better figure out what to do with that baby. Because if he's not the key…" He looked up, voice sharp, "…then we're already dead."
The Chief turned back to him, silent.
The silence said everything.
The tension still hummed in the walls when the room's comm console beeped twice — a sharp, digital stutter.
Adrain turned to it.
"Secure channel. No signature. Must be bouncing through blackwave relays."
The Chief approached slowly, cigar forgotten, his hand hovering over the console. A flash of paranoia crossed his face — the kind of caution honed in trenches, not meetings.
He pressed the button.
Static at first… then a warped, distorted voice cut through. Digitized. Masked.
"A scar is not a wound. It is a memory… sealed in flesh."
Adrain furrowed his brow. The Chief's face went still.
"Repeat," he ordered.
The voice obeyed.
"A scar is not a wound. It is a memory… sealed in flesh. This is Gallowglass. Your ghosts still walk. The child must be protected. The hour approaches when blood will rewrite the script."
The message ended. Silence reclaimed the bunker.
Adrain blinked. "Gallowglass… that's a dead code name. From the Wastes. I thought they all got wiped out in the Purge."
The Chief's fists clenched. He hadn't heard that name in years. It haunted old battle logs and memory shards — an elite resistance cell, erased without a trace by the Conclave.
"Ghosts don't send encrypted messages," he growled.
He looked down at the table, the dented metal reflecting his war-hardened stare. Something about the message clung to his mind like barbed wire.
"'The child must be protected,'" Adrain repeated, low and tense. "They're talking about him, aren't they?"
The Chief didn't answer. Instead, he turned and walked back to the command chair, sinking into it like a mountain settling on its roots. He stared into the screen — not at what was on it, but through it. Into the past. Into possibilities.
"We double guards on the child. No one sees him without my clearance."
"Even Foden?"
The Chief didn't flinch.
"Especially Foden."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"And send out a recon drone to the coordinates of our last loss. If Scourges are breeding in those ruins, I want eyes before they spawn more."
Adrain nodded, but his voice dropped.
"And if this message is a trap?"
The Chief lit a fresh cigar. Took a long drag. Smoke curled around his scarred lips.
"Then we bait the trap."
"And if it's real?"
The Chief exhaled slowly, eyes narrowed.
"Then this child isn't just the future…"
He looked up, a haunted glint in his eye.
"…He's the last chapter."