This stretch of Shimbou used to link Mujin and Teppen by high-speed rail.

Used to.

Now it's a ghost town wrapped in smog—

abandoned the day Mujin slammed its borders shut.

Gray buildings sit with their windows sealed, like the whole place is holding its breath. 

The air's thick with fumes, same as every other city in Teppen—only during daylight, you can actually see it choke the sky.

The streets are black cinder, cracked and empty.

 Only the strays and the desperate still haunt this place—motel owners, mostly, trying to make rent off weary feet and fake names.

Two days from now, the Exodus Day celebrations will kick in—loud, gaudy, and entirely performative. 

That means I need to get to Oraku—fast—before the motels start filling up with people who've never known what it's like to run.

If you follow the train tracks far enough, you'll hit the edge of my old world—Mujin. 

Just past the gates, there's the red zone, where Order Control takes turns patrolling in pairs. 

Beyond that? The Wall.

Titanium, three stories high, smooth as glass. 

Face-tracking cameras mounted like vultures, scanning every blink, every breath. 

You can't cross it without being ID'ed down to your dental records. 

Mujans are instructed to stay six feet away from it at all times. 

Step too close, and you get sniped. Or worse—caught, labeled a defector, and sent to one of the camps.

No trial. 

No appeal. 

Just hard labor until your body gives out.

They say the Order runs twenty-four-hour surveillance within a fifty-mile radius. 

But the last known defector crossed back in Year 99, and with no recent breaches to worry about, their guards got sloppy. 

Took longer breaks. Slept on the job.

I was the one who made them regret it.

Being clever helps when you're a fugitive. 

So does having a stepfather with the entire nation under his thumb. 

There was a blindspot in the surveillance grid—small, stupid. An oversight. 

I found it.

I had my gloves: custom-built, neodymium core, calibrated to hold my weight against polished titanium. 

I had intel too. 

Overheard the Attorney General talking shop with the man who raised me. 

Patrol schedules. 

Weak points. 

Lazy watchmen with long breaks.

Everything I needed to plan my escape. 

All I had to do was wait.

And when the time came—I didn't hesitate.

It took a week of walking—track after track—before I let myself believe I'd actually made it out.

Even then, I kept my ear to the ground. 

The faint crunch of boots. 

A scanner's hum. 

Any sign that Order Control had picked up my trail.

I slept in dead trains. 

Cold, metal coffins with no destination. 

Comfortable, in their own way. 

At least they didn't ask questions.

Nights were for fixing the gloves. 

Tinkering.

Adjusting. 

Pretending like I had control over something. 

It was better than thinking.

Sometimes, I'd check my phone. Just for a second. Just to see what version of me made the headlines.

Traitor. Rebel. Armed and dangerous. 

They always left out the part where I used to plant cherry tomatoes on the roof with my stepbrother.

Hyun probably thought I vanished.

He was always soft-spoken, which annoyed me when we were kids. 

Now I'd kill to hear it again.

The truth is, he was never part of the plan. And I was never going to be allowed to stay.

Looking back, that was for the best. 

Clean breaks are easier to mourn.

By the fifth night, the gloves held up. So did I.

Days were spent following the rails, same rhythm, same ache in my legs. 

Just enough static in my head to keep moving.

 I didn't think much. 

Thinking was dangerous. 

Thinking led to places I couldn't afford to go.

Somewhere along the outskirts of Teppen, the tracks finally let me go. 

That's when I pulled out the phone.

Still intact. Still glowing. Still a loaded gun.

There were a few articles I hadn't read yet—new takes on the same lie. 

Speculations. Sightings. Rumors. 

One mentioned Hyun, briefly. 

Said the Prime Minister's son looked "shaken" at a press conference.

Of course he did.

They always train the family to look broken. Makes the whole act more convincing.

I stared at the screen too long. Let it light up my face like it meant something.

Then I snapped it in half.

Didn't flinch. Just tossed it into a ditch. 

The girl I was, died on the tracks. 

What came next wasn't a rebirth. Just... rewiring.

That's when I met Eva.

I crossed into Teppen with the kind of luck you don't question until it runs out. 

Apparently, that last one bought me a few more hours of breathing.

That's when I noticed her.

Bleach-blonde buzzcut. 

Sharp jawline. 

Tattoos crawled up her arms like battle plans inked straight onto her skin.

She leaned against the wall, watching me like I was a schematic she couldn't quite read.

Her voice was rough. Smoked glass and midnight radio.

I didn't answer. Didn't nod. Just kept working.

"I've seen tech like that in Mujin," she said, stepping closer.

 "But never on this side of the wall."

"I could use someone with hands like yours," she added. "You hungry?"

I didn't know what to say. 

I was. 

But I had a feeling she wasn't talking about food.

She flashed a badge I didn't recognize and whispered something to the guard—something smooth, practiced, expensive.

The man hesitated, glanced back at me, then waved her through like he didn't want to know more.

She walked me out of the detention center like I was luggage.

No cuffs. No resistance. Just confidence.

Once we were out of range, she pulled me into an alley behind a rundown cafe and crouched beside me. "This is gonna sting," she said, pulling something sleek and silver from her jacket.

A chip. Federation ID. Clean, forged, already encoded.

"I don't have creds for this," I muttered.

"Good thing I'm not asking," she replied. "Hold still."

She pressed the chip into the soft skin behind my ear. 

The laser cauterizer flared with light and heat, and I felt something inside me scream and shut down.

The wound sizzled closed. 

The silence afterward felt final.

Then she tapped the ID chip to the scanner. 

My name blinked onto the display:

Kite, Tessa.

Tessa.

I stared at the name until it stopped looking like one.

It wasn't mine. It didn't fit.

But it bought me a second life.

Yoon Jong-Ri didn't make it out of Mujin.

 But Tessa Kite? 

She slipped through the cracks.

Eva didn't take me in like some charity case. 

She handed me a wrench and said, "Don't break anything I can't sell."

We slept in shipping containers, trained in gyms with shattered mirrors and no heat. 

I scavenged parts from junkyards and patched suits with duct tape and copper. 

Despite that, she held her end of the bargain and paid me generously for my work.

Eva said that was safer.

I told myself it was enough.