The path sloped gently, winding past broken pylons and the fractured remains of an old rail line. Riven stepped over the tracks without slowing, keeping his eyes on the scanner, though his thoughts had already drifted elsewhere.
"The core," he said after a while. "When it read Bram... it didn't just process his fingerprint, it actually judged him. Did you notice?"
Cassian was walking a few steps behind Riven, with his arms folded at his back, watching him as they slowly moved forward. "Yeah... I did. Truth be told, he was trying to force everyone into submission."
"I'm not talking about that," Riven replied. "It had his behavioral pattern. The moment Bram touched the core, it knew things about him that a piece of technology like that shouldn't know in that way."
Cassian tilted his head. "So what... You think it's psychic now?"
"No," Riven replied. "But it acted like it had history on him, stuff you don't get from a fingerprint scan. It keeps showing it can do more than I give it credit for."
Cassian studied Riven from behind as they walked. He was still in his twenties, but chasing something no one else had managed to reach, except maybe his sister. And she hadn't been as lucky. Most people would've cracked under half of this by now. All the fear, paranoia, and the constant weight of not knowing what's watching or why. So Cassian did what little he could to cut through it, just enough to make the moment easier.
"Maybe it just didn't like his haircut."
"You're impossible," Riven replied, scoffing under his breath.
Cassian shrugged and grinned playfully, still watching him. "And you're obsessed. Which is how I know you're not gonna stop until you get your answers."
Riven's eyes were on the scanner again. "It's not about answers," he said eventually. "Not just that. I just want things to get better. I know they can get better."
Cassian's grin faded slightly. "Yeah. I know."
They kept walking.
A gust stirred sand across the path, and they lifted their arms to shield their faces. Up ahead, the trail split in a way that was unexpected. Riven checked the map again, tracing a thumb along the crease where the ridge was supposed to be clear.
"This doesn't match anymore," he said.
Cassian stepped up beside him, glancing at the map. "So we take the next best guess?"
Before Riven could answer, a soft click echoed from somewhere ahead. They both stopped at once and looked in the same direction.
Through the haze, three figures appeared in the distance. They wore light armor, and long-barreled rifles rested at their sides. Riven ducked, motioning Cassian to do the same. They moved fast, slipping behind a wrecked pylon just as the patrol reached close to where they were.
"Enforcers?" Cassian whispered.
"Probably," Riven replied. "This is a restricted zone, but we don't have time to wait them out."
"Then we go west," Cassian said, already moving.
The new path west sloped steeply, and the terrain changed quickly from dusty roads to broken stone. Bits of metal were showing up from the soil now and then, remnants of old machines that had no more use to anyone.
Cassian slowed, scanning the field ahead. "You sure this is the better choice?" he asked.
"No," Riven replied. "But it's the only one I can think of where we don't get a gun pointed at us."
They moved downhill. Below, the basin stretched wide, filled with broken transport rigs sunk deep into the dust. Some had been picked clean and stood like empty skeletons. They kept walking through it.
At some point, Riven paused at the edge of what had once been a convoy route. The road was no longer a road, but wreckage.
Cassian slowed, scanning the wrecks. One vehicle stood apart from the others. It had a lower frame, narrow wheels, and its panels had faded to a pale orange in the sun. Faded paint still clung to the side, and the markings were almost gone, but Cassian recognized them anyway.
He stepped toward it. "I remember these," he said quietly, almost to himself. "We used them a long time ago..."
Riven stopped beside him, following his gaze to the same wreck.
Cassian touched the doorframe, listening to the faint creak under his hand. "We used to call 'em 'silk tubes'. They were fragile, but they moved fast."
Riven looked inside the broken cabin. "Looks like an old transport rig," he said quietly. "They used these to move supplies in and out of big cities… I think."
Cassian's voice stayed even. "They weren't moving cargo."
He didn't look at Riven when he said it, and Riven didn't ask anything more. Silence felt like the right thing in a place filled with what seemed to be heavy memories.
They moved on.
The slope rose again, curving toward a natural ridge. As they climbed, the remnants grew stranger with curved vents the size of walls, shattered pieces of wreckage, and long cables like veins twisted through the rock.
As the path leveled out at the top, the horizon broke open. A wide canyon stretched beneath them, and scattered across it, hundreds of machines stood rusted and still. They were monumental in size, something neither of them had ever seen before.
Cassian slowed, drawn to the shapes in the distance. He saw mechanical humanoid limbs frozen mid-step, torsos fallen forward in unnatural positions.
"Shit," he murmured. "That's not just a graveyard. That's a battlefield."
Light caught along rusted edges and broken panels. Some machines lay in ruins with their frames caved in and limbs torn off. Others still stood, oddly intact, like statues built for no one. One of them stood in partial light, with its arm still lifted towards the sky. The hand was missing, but the gesture remained.
Cassian stared. "Looks like a war between gods no one remembers."
They both looked at it for a moment. Something violent had happened there, but whatever it was, history no longer had the words to explain it.
"These rigs weren't built to fight," Riven said after a moment.
Cassian looked down into the basin. "They sure as hell look like they did."
They descended slowly into the basin, and with every step, the machines around them seemed to grow taller and heavier.
Riven stepped around a massive block of what looked like a broken arm unit when something caught his eye. He slowed, crouched, and brushed some of the dust aside. It was a small toy made out of bright, long-faded plastic. One of its wheels was missing. He stared at it for a moment, thumb brushing the sand from its surface. He thought of Anya and her silence. Of how things had turned out for her in the end. It hurt something deep inside him, but he chose to keep it silent.
Cassian appeared beside him again. "Talia would've loved this place."
Riven looked up. "She'd have three teams spread out researching it by now."
Cassian gave a small smile. "Yeah. She probably would've forced us to help, too."
By late afternoon, the light had gone thin. Shadows stretched long across the canyon, cutting clean lines through rusted metal, while the wind started to pick up between the wrecks.
They took shelter beneath the mechanical palm of one of the humanoid arms scattered through the graveyard. It had twisted enough to form a sloped cover, shielding them from the worst of the wind.
Cassian stepped inside first, ran a hand along the inner wall, then gave a short nod. He was pleased.
Riven ducked under the frame and set the satchel down on a flat patch of metal. He pulled out a folded sheet and laid it where the surface bent the least, then lowered himself onto it with a quiet exhale, legs stretching out in front of him.
Cassian leaned back against the wall next to him. His eyes traced the shape of a support beam overhead. "I wonder how many people died building these."
"I wonder how many still remember what they were for," Riven replied after a short pause.