Ash’s motorcycle roared across the empty stretch of Texas highway, the night air thick with dust and the promise of rain. His visor reflected the dying glow of neon as he crossed the state line back toward the edge of civilization—a tired, broken strip of road leading to the motel where his signal was clean enough to reach Devil’s encrypted channel.
He parked the bike under the broken sign, killed the engine, and sat in the silence for a while. The hum of cicadas filled the emptiness. His mind, however, was anything but quiet. Every piece of intel he’d gathered about the S.O.W.—their coded shipments, their recruitment drives, the encrypted chatter about The Herald—pointed toward something brewing, and fast.
Finally, he pushed into the room, dropped his gear, and dialed the number only a
