Scavenger Protocol

This is not the world you knew

In the back room of the Rusty Spur, a single swinging bulb cast harsh light over a makeshift med station — steel table, scattered med supplies, and a battered cryo-pod someone had dragged in from a wrecked convoy.

Jax sat on the edge of the table while Milo, the skinny medic with augmented glasses, probed the raw skin on his left arm. The venom glands in his jaw still throbbed with a low, constant ache.

“Hold still,” Milo muttered. “Your toxin glands are stabilizing, but the side effects are nasty. One wrong move and you’ll paralyze your own tongue.”

“Charming,” Jax said dryly.

Reyes leaned against the wall, arms crossed. She had cleaned the blood off her face, but the bruise on her cheek was already turning purple. “You’re lucky the Alpha didn’t tag you fully. Most fresh arrivals from the big rift get overwritten in minutes.”

Jax flexed his fingers. The new reinforced tendons made the motion feel smoother, stronger. “So tell me straight. What the hell is this place? One minute I’m driving through the desert. Next minute the sky rips open and I’m fighting monsters with claws growing out of my hands.”

Reyes exchanged a quick look with Milo, then sighed.

“This isn’t the world you left behind, Harlan. Not exactly. The green tears — the rifts — have been happening for weeks. Small ones at first. People vanishing off highways, entire trucks disappearing mid-run, remote outposts going silent. Most folks thought it was storms, blackouts, or raiders getting bolder. Then two days ago the big rift tore across the sky and pulled in a massive wave. Including you.”

She tapped her temple. “Some of us got pulled through earlier precursor rifts. We’ve had time to figure out the rules. Learn how the BioForge works. Patch ourselves before things got this bad.”

Milo nodded, wrapping a fresh bandage around Jax’s arm. “The BioForge Domain is… something else. It assigns objectives, gives upgrades, tracks levels. It seems to me, there are two forces at play here. The one responsible for the monsters, and the transformation, and one that grants upgrades and abilities to combat them.

"Or maybe they are one and the same, and this is just a cruel joke, a morbid kind of entertainment for whoever is in charge. Perhaps this is truly one of those Hollywood movie plotlines come through, and we are in an arena like reality, where we have to fight our way out to our world, and dying here, is the end of the road" Reyes added cynically

"How long have you been here" Jax asked.

"Weeks, months, years more likely". Reyes shrugged nonchalantly. "Milo's a nerd even from our earth proper, and he seems to think that time moves differently here. What seemed like an instant to you in which the sky rippled and brought you here, is probably days or weeks. And I have known him and my crew far longer than you've been here".

Milo took over from where she stopped. "I haven't kept count of the days for some time now, but myself last count added up to a hundred and fifty days here. Who knows how long that is, on the other end.

"And from what we've seen, there are people who've been here for longer, given up hope of ever going back, and are trying to create a new form of government and hierarch here. Rival crews, scavenging for loot, shooting each other. Feels like the Wild West again."

Jax’s jaw tightened. “My brother Riley. He was on a supply run two towns over. We lost contact since before the big tear. You think he got pulled through one of those earlier rifts?”

“Possible,” Reyes said. “Some people arrive disoriented. Others start mutating almost immediately. If he came through earlier, he might have been here longer than you. Assimilation hits harder the longer you’re exposed.”

A new clear notification appeared only for Jax:

[Personal Objective Updated: Locate Riley Harlan]

[Current probability he arrived via precursor rift: 67%]

[Warning: Prolonged exposure in the BioForge Domain increases assimilation risk.]

Jax stood up, rolling his shoulder. The stitches pulled, but the reinforced tendons took most of the strain. “I’m not leaving him out there. If he’s still alive, I’m bringing him back.”

Reyes studied him for a long moment. “We were already planning a run to Black Rock Mine tomorrow. Good Script density, active Nexus activity. If your brother got pulled in earlier, the signal might have drawn him toward the strongest zones. But we don’t do charity runs. You pull your weight, you get a cut of the loot, and you don’t slow us down. Deal?”

Jax met her eyes. “Deal.”

Milo finished the bandage. “Try not to kill anything important tonight. Sleep helps the integration settle. Sometimes.”

As if on cue, a new notification flashed in Jax’s mind:

[Daily Quest: Stabilize your current build]

[Integrate the Alpha Core Fragment before tomorrow’s fights or risk painful mutation cascade.]

[Reward: +1 Mutation Capacity and one random Script upgrade.]

[Penalty for failure: Random glitch cascade (high severity).]

Jax gave a humorless smile. “The damn thing even gives homework.”

Reyes chuckled. “Welcome to the BioForge Domain, Harlan. Get some rest. We roll at first light. And if you’re going to experiment with that core fragment, do it outside. Last guy who tried a major patch indoors took half the roof with him when his skeleton tried to become a tree.”

Jax grabbed his rifle and headed for the door. The night air outside was cool and dry, carrying the faint scent of creosote and distant smoke. The stars overhead looked the same… but now and then a faint green shimmer rippled across them, as if the sky itself was scarred.

He walked to the edge of town, past the reinforced barricades. In a clear patch of sand, he sat on an overturned crate and pressed the pulsing Alpha Core Fragment against his chest.

Heat bloomed instantly — white-hot, spreading through muscle and bone like molten wire. His back arched as an alien surge of power, flooded his system. Ribs creaked, Internal structures realigned with wet pops.

[Alpha Core Fragment integrating…]

[High compatibility detected. Potential class evolution path opening.]

[New Script unlocked: Core Overclock v1.0 — Temporarily boosts all physical stats by 200% for 60 seconds.]

[Major downside: After it ends, Toughness drops by 40% for 10 minutes. Risk of internal rupture if overused.]

The integration finished with a final surge. Jax gasped, sweat pouring down his face. Faint glowing circuit lines traced under his skin across his chest.

He stood slowly, testing his balance. Everything felt sharper. Stronger. But beneath it, a new pressure hummed — a warning that this place wasn’t done with him yet.

A distant roar echoed from the darkness beyond the barricades. Another rift waking up.

Jax chambered a round in his rifle and headed back toward the saloon lights.

Tomorrow they would hit Black Rock Mine.

Tomorrow he would get one step closer to finding Riley.

.

But for the first time since the sky tore open, Jax felt something dangerous flicker to life inside him.

Hope.

And hunger.