Across the encrypted resistance frequencies, a legend had surfaced:

The year was 2028, but for Elias, time had stopped meaning anything other than "minutes survived." He sat in the hollowed-out shell of a Sydney library, his fingers dancing across a cracked datapad.

In the ruins of the Old World, "Free" was a death sentence. Anything left out in the open—cans of peaches, pristine medkits, unlooted ammunition—was usually a lure set by the HK-Aerials patrolling the coast. But Elias wasn't looking for food. He was looking for a ghost.