Page 98 of Rupture

Finn shielded his eyes from the setting sun. Something dark and massive stretched across the sky—a shadow where the endless blue should be. “Sandstorm. A big one.”

“Finn—” She showed him the satellite imagery on her tablet. A towering wall of orange-brown dominated the screen.

A hot wind gusted, carrying the metallic tang of the approaching storm.If the nanobots got caught in the storm’s fury…

“How long?” Rose rubbed at the base of her neck.

Finn narrowed his eyes. “Two hours, maybe less. Once it hits, visibility drops to zero. Potential winds over seventy kilometers per hour.”

Ethan swore under his breath. “We have time. But we need to move now.” The unspoken alternative hung in the air between them—Thea’s nanobots caught in a Kalahari sandstorm, scattered across thousands of square miles.

“Can’t someone cut us some fucking slack for once?” Luca muttered, his face turned to the darkening sky.

“Let’s get this show on the road.” Ethan’s voice was terse. He swung up beside Liev, the vehicle roaring to life beneath them. They pulled away, dust eddying in their wake. In their absence, wind whipped across the exposed terrain, pelting Finn’s bare arms with stinging sand. Static almost crackled in the super-heated air.

A harbinger of the approaching storm.

Time’s running out.

He hurried to the second vehicle, Rose close on his heels.

“Finn.” She tugged his elbow. “What is that?”

He followed her gaze to the cave entrance. A mass sprawled across the ground—not reddish like the desert floor, but an unsettling bluish-gray in the fading light. The storm-charged air seemed to bend around it, distorting the space like a heat mirage.

His hand flicked the safety on his holster.

Luca snugged his pulse rifle against his shoulder, his eyes dark slashes. “We should check that shit out.”

“Stay behind me.” Finn motioned Rose into his shadow as he approached the cave mouth.

He slowed. Combat instincts screamed a warning, every nerve firing.

This was bad.

He stopped abruptly. Rose bumped into his back, steadying herself with a grip on his waist. “Finn, what?”

She stepped around him and, before he could stop her,dropped into a crouch. The evening’s dying light reflected an oily sheen on the jellied mass before them.

Luca circled it, weapon trained. “What in the ever-loving hell is that?”

Finn gripped Rose’s shoulder, instincts screaming to pull her back. “Rose?—”

She took hold of his hand as she boosted to her feet, her skin pale despite the desert sunset. “They’re replicating even faster than I expected.”

“What? Shit?” Luca kicked dirt on the mass.

“You know what this is?” Finn searched her gaze.

She nodded. “An animal…well,wasan animal.”

“An animal?” His gaze fell to the ground again. “It looks like a dead jellyfish and we’re in the middle of the goddamn desert.”

Luca prodded the mass with the tip of his pulse rifle. “Are thosebonesin there?” His face warped in disgust. “Fucking flesh-eating jellybots?—”

“Gray goo.” Her voice became emotionless, clinical. “In the habitat, the nanobots utilized the Ceto bacteria.” Her gaze fixed on the mass. “But here, they are evolving beyond their programming, consuming whatever organic material they find—local wildlife, plants, anything. The assembler units break it down, restructure it, and replicate. Endlessly. Creating an army.”

Finn turned his back on the goo. Hair pricked on his arms. The same way it did on a mission when shit was about to hit the fan.

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