Chapter 1: Static and Leather
The window was already broken. That was the first thing Zarana noticed—a jagged mouth of glass teeth framing the darkness inside the relay station, edged with rust and bird shit and the kind of grime that came from decades of neglect. She'd planned to make her own entrance. Preferred it that way, actually. There was something satisfying about claiming a space with your own hands, your own sweat, your own carefully calculated violence.
But someone had beaten her to it.
She crouched on the outer ledge, three stories up, the wind clawing at her leather jacket like it wanted to strip her bare. Below, the blackened pines swayed and creaked, their branches scratching against the station's skeletal frame. The storm was coming in fast. She could taste it on the air—that electric tang of ozone and rain and something else.
Something like trouble.
Zarana slipped through the gap, her boots finding purchase on the debris-strewn floor with practiced silence. The interior was worse than she'd expected. Server racks leaned like drunkards against the walls, their indicator lights flickering in dying patterns. Holo-projectors stuttered to life and died in the same breath, casting ghost-images across the walls—fragments of old transmissions, weather data, encrypted bursts of numbers that meant nothing to anyone anymore.
The place smelled like rot and copper and the ozone burn of fried electronics.
She moved deeper, her fingers brushing against a console as she passed. Dead. No hum. No heat. Just the cold, indifferent silence of abandoned technology.
Then she saw the light.
A flashlight beam cut through the darkness ahead, sweeping across a tangle of cables and broken monitors. It paused on a server rack, then moved on, methodical. Searching.
Zarana's hand went to her hip, fingers wrapping around the grip of her knife. She didn't draw it yet. Didn't need to. But the weight of it was comforting, a reminder that she wasn't helpless. Never helpless.
She crept forward, each step deliberate, her breath shallow and controlled. The light source was just ahead, just around the corner of a collapsed partition wall. She could hear him now—the soft creak of boots on debris, the occasional mutter under his breath.
A man's voice. Low. Frustrated.
"—should be here. Signal's definitely originating from this grid. Unless the relay's misaligned again..."
She knew that voice.
Zarana's jaw tightened. Of all the people to run into in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a goddamn storm—it had to be him.
She stepped around the partition.
Mainframe looked up.
The flashlight beam caught her square in the face, and she squinted against the sudden brightness, raising a hand to block it. "You gonna blind me, or are you gonna say hello?"
He didn't move. Didn't lower the light. Just stood there, frozen, his expression caught somewhere between shock and something she couldn't quite name. His jaw was tight, his shoulders squared beneath that ridiculous tactical vest he always wore, the one with more pockets than any human being could possibly need.
"Zarana." Her name came out flat. Controlled. Like he was trying to convince himself she wasn't actually there.
"In the flesh." She dropped her hand and flashed him a smile that showed teeth. "Miss me?"
The flashlight finally lowered. Mainframe's face emerged from the glare—that familiar sharp jaw, those earnest eyes that always looked like they were trying to solve a puzzle. His dark hair was disheveled, like he'd been running his fingers through it, and there was a smudge of grease on his cheek.
He looked good. Annoyingly good.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Could ask you the same thing." She took a step closer, her boots crunching on broken glass. "This is Dreadnok territory. Or it was, before you Joes decided to stick your noses where they don't belong."
"This station's been abandoned for years. Nobody's territory."
"Semantics."
Mainframe's eyes narrowed. He didn't back away as she approached, which she had to admit was either brave or stupid. Probably both. "I'm tracking a signal. Encrypted burst transmission, repeating on a loop. It's been broadcasting for weeks."
"So?"
"So, it's using Dreadnok encryption protocols."
That stopped her cold.
Zarana's smile faded. She felt something cold settle in her chest, a sensation she didn't like one bit. "You're lying."
"I don't lie." He said it simply, like it was a fact about the weather. "You know that."
She did know that. That was the worst part.
The wind howled outside, rattling the broken window frame. Somewhere deeper in the station, a holo-projector sparked and died with a soft pop. The silence between them stretched like a wire about to snap.
"Show me," Zarana said finally.
Mainframe hesitated. She could see the calculation behind his eyes, the weighing of risks and outcomes. He didn't trust her—smart man—but he also knew that if the Dreadnoks were somehow involved in this, she'd find out eventually anyway. Better to have her here, where he could watch her.
Or maybe he just wanted her here.
That thought sent a dangerous little thrill down her spine. She crushed it immediately.
He turned without a word and walked deeper into the station. Zarana followed, her eyes scanning the shadows for traps, for ambushes, for anything that might explain why a G.I. Joe operative was poking around in her people's backyard.
The room he led her to was smaller than the main floor, more intact. A single server rack stood against the far wall, its lights blinking in a steady rhythm. Cables snaked from its base across the floor, connecting to a portable terminal Mainframe had set up on a makeshift table.
He gestured at the screen. "See for yourself."
Zarana leaned in. The terminal displayed a stream of encrypted data—numbers and letters arranged in patterns she recognized instantly. Her stomach dropped.
"That's not Dreadnok encryption," she said slowly.
Mainframe frowned. "What?"
"It's based on it. Someone modified the protocols." She straightened, crossing her arms. "This isn't us. Someone's trying to make it look like us."
"Who?"
"Hell if I know." She met his eyes. "But I'm going to find out."
The storm finally broke. Rain lashed against the station's metal shell, drumming a frantic rhythm overhead. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room in stark white for a single heartbeat, and in that moment, Zarana saw something in Mainframe's expression that made her breath catch.
Concern. Not for the mission. For her.
"You should go," he said quietly. "Before the weather gets worse."
"Trying to get rid of me?"
"I'm trying to keep you from getting caught in a storm in the middle of nowhere."
"I've survived worse."
"I know." His voice was soft. Too soft. "That's what worries me."
Zarana stared at him. The rain pounded. The server hummed. And somewhere in her chest, something cracked—just a little, just enough to let the cold in.
She should leave. She should walk out that broken window and disappear into the storm and never look back. That was what she did. That was who she was.
But her feet didn't move.
"Show me the rest of the transmission," she said.
Mainframe held her gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded and turned back to the terminal.
And Zarana stayed.
Mainframe turned back to the terminal, his fingers moving across the keyboard with the kind of fluid precision that came from years of muscle memory. The screen flickered, lines of code scrolling past faster than Zarana could track. Not that she needed to track it. She understood the shape of what she was seeing, the architecture of it. Someone had taken Dreadnok encryption—her encryption, the protocols she'd helped design—and twisted it into something new.
"There," Mainframe said, highlighting a section of code. "See how the signal's partitioned? It's not just broadcasting. It's listening."
Zarana leaned closer, her shoulder brushing against his. Neither of them acknowledged it. "Listening for what?"
"That's the thing. I don't—"
The screen went black.
Then red.
A single number appeared in the center, impossibly large, pulsing with a sickly luminescence.
10
Zarana's blood turned to ice. "What did you do?"
"Nothing. I didn't—" Mainframe's hands flew across the keyboard. The countdown continued, indifferent to his panic.
9
"It's a trap," Zarana breathed.
8
"Move."
Mainframe didn't wait for her to finish the word. His hand closed around her wrist—firm, unyielding—and he yanked her toward the door. She stumbled, caught off guard by the sudden force of him, but her legs found their rhythm fast. They always did.
7
The server rack behind them began to whine, a high-pitched keening that set her teeth on edge. Sparks showered from the ceiling. The holo-projectors that had been flickering all night suddenly blazed to life, casting frantic images across the walls—faces, coordinates, fragments of transmissions in languages she didn't recognize.
6
Mainframe shouldered through the door, dragging her behind him. His grip was iron. Desperate. She could feel the tremor in his fingers, the way his pulse hammered against her skin.
5
"Faster," she snapped, even though he was already running, already pulling her with everything he had.
4
They hit the main floor. The broken window loomed ahead, a jagged rectangle of storm-light and rain. Too far. They weren't going to make it.
3
Mainframe pivoted hard, slamming them both behind a collapsed server rack. His body covered hers, pressing her against the cold floor, his arms braced on either side of her head. She could smell him—sweat and ozone and something clean underneath, like soap.
2
"Close your eyes," he said.
1
She didn't.
The explosion ripped through the station like a living thing. Heat washed over them in a wave, followed by debris—metal and glass and chunks of concrete that pelted against the server rack with brutal force. The sound was beyond sound; it was pressure, a physical weight that crushed the air from her lungs and left her ears ringing with a high, thin whine.
The ground shook. The walls screamed. And through it all, Mainframe didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just stayed there, his body a shield between her and the chaos, his breath hot against her cheek.
Then silence.
Not real silence—the ringing was still there, and the rain still hammered against what remained of the roof—but the kind of silence that came after violence. The kind that felt like the world had been holding its breath and finally let go.
Zarana opened her eyes.
Mainframe was still above her, his face inches from hers. His eyes were squeezed shut, his jaw clenched so tight she could see the muscles jumping beneath his skin. A cut on his forehead wept blood down his temple. Dust coated his hair, his shoulders, the ridiculous tactical vest.
He was alive.
He was alive, and he was looking at her now, his eyes opening slow, like he was afraid of what he'd see. When his gaze found hers, something shifted in his expression. Relief. Wonder. Something softer she didn't have a name for.
"You okay?" His voice was rough, scraped raw by the explosion.
She should have said something sharp. Something sarcastic. Something that reminded them both who they were and what they meant to each other—which was nothing. Enemies. Opposites. A Dreadnok and a Joe, oil and water, fire and ice.
Instead, she kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't tentative. Her hand fisted in the collar of his vest and she pulled him down, crushing her mouth against his with a desperation that surprised even her. He tasted like dust and copper and the faint sweetness of whatever he'd been drinking before the world tried to kill them both.
For half a second, he didn't respond.
Then his hands were in her hair, tangling in the pink spikes, and he was kissing her back like she was oxygen and he'd been drowning. His weight pressed her into the floor, solid and warm and real. His mouth moved against hers with a hunger that contradicted everything she thought she knew about him.
The nerdy Joe. The awkward one. The one who always had his nose in a screen and his head in the clouds.
He kissed like he'd been waiting years for permission.
When they finally broke apart, both gasping, Zarana's hand was still wrapped in his vest. Her lips were swollen. Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat.
Mainframe stared down at her. His pupils were blown wide, his breathing ragged. There was blood on his lip now—hers or his, she couldn't tell.
"That was..." He trailed off, like he couldn't find the word.
"Adrenaline," Zarana said flatly. "Happens."
"No." He shook his head slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. "That wasn't adrenaline."
She should push him off. Should get up, brush herself down, walk away. That was the smart play. The safe play. The play that kept her alive and untouchable and alone.
But her hand wouldn't let go of his vest.
And somewhere in the smoking ruins of the relay station, the rogue signal was still broadcasting.
Still listening.
Waiting.