Chapter 13: Blood on the Sand

 The desert had no mercy.
Three days into the Scorched Wastes, and Ryo was beginning to understand why people called it the land where hope went to die. The sun was a hammer. The sand was broken glass. And the heat made reality itself shimmer and twist until you couldn't trust what you were seeing.
Sera drove their sand-skiff with mechanical precision, her cybernetic eye filtering out the worst of the glare. Ryo sat beside her, supposedly navigating, but mostly fighting the visions.
They came without warning now. Flashes of memory that weren't his own.
*Zero standing in a laboratory, watching technicians work. "The Core isn't just a weapon. It's evolution. And evolution doesn't ask permission."*
*His father arguing, angry: "You're talking about rewriting human consciousness! That's not evolution—that's extinction!"*
*Zero's cold response: "Extinction of weakness. Birth of perfection. Same thing."*
Ryo gasped, snapping back to the present. His hands were shaking.
"Again?" Sera asked, not taking her eyes off the terrain.
"Yeah." Ryo wiped sweat from his face—or tried to. In this heat, everyone was sweating. "Getting worse. More vivid. Like the fragments are trying to show me something."
"Or like they're downloading Zero's memories into your head." Sera's jaw tightened. "We should find somewhere to rest. Let you recover before—"
"There's nowhere to rest out here. And we're running out of time." Ryo consulted the data pad where he'd been piecing together Zero's final words. "He said 'Red'—that's all he got out before he died. Could be Redwater Ridge, but we already searched there. Could be Red Canyon, but that's three hundred miles north. Or..."
"Or?" 
"Or Red Glass Valley. An old FDI testing site about fifty miles from here. Where they tested orbital weapons during the war." Ryo pulled up a map. "It fits. Remote. Heavily damaged. Perfect place to hide something you never want found."
"It's also radioactive. And filled with automated defenses that kill anything that moves." Sera glanced at him. "You sure about this?"
"No. But it's the best lead we have." Ryo felt another vision pulling at him and fought it back. "And if we don't find the last fragments soon, the FDI will. Or someone worse."
They drove in silence for a while.
Then Sera asked the question she'd been avoiding for three days.
"How much of Zero can you remember now? Through the fragments?"
Ryo was quiet for a long moment. "Too much. I remember his childhood—he and my father were close. Best friends as well as brothers. Both brilliant. Both idealistic. They joined the FDI program together, wanting to make the world safer."
"What happened?"
"The Core happened. When they started testing it, Zero volunteered first. Said someone had to take the risk, might as well be him." Ryo's voice was distant. "The bonding process took three days. Three days of agony as the Core rewired his entire nervous system. My father watched him scream. Couldn't do anything to help."
"Jesus."
"When it was over, Zero was different. Stronger. Faster. Smarter. But colder. He didn't cry anymore. Didn't laugh. Didn't dream." Ryo looked at his hands. "My father wanted to reverse it. Zero said there was nothing to reverse—he'd just become more efficient. More optimal."
"That's when your father decided to destroy the Core."
"That's when he realized what they'd created. A weapon that didn't just enhance the body—it rewrote the soul." Ryo felt tears on his face and was surprised. The fragments usually suppressed that kind of emotional response. Maybe he was getting better at controlling them. Or maybe they were letting him feel this particular pain. "And now I'm carrying pieces of that same weapon. Becoming more like Zero every day."
"You're nothing like him."
"Aren't I?" Ryo turned to face her. "I can calculate bullet trajectories in my sleep. I don't feel fear anymore—just tactical assessment of threat levels. Yesterday, when we saw that wounded scavenger on the road, my first thought wasn't 'how can we help him.' It was 'he's a liability—probable survival rate too low to justify resource expenditure.' That's how Zero thought, Sera. That's what the fragments are turning me into."
"But you didn't leave him. You stopped, gave him water and medical supplies, and pointed him toward the nearest settlement. Because underneath the calculations, you're still you. Still human."
"For how long?" Ryo asked quietly. "How long until I can't separate the fragments' thoughts from my own? Until I don't want to?"
Sera didn't have an answer.
They drove on as the sun climbed higher, turning the Wastes into an oven. Around midday, they stopped to refuel and check the skiff's systems.
Ryo stood at the edge of their makeshift camp, staring out at the endless expanse of glass and ash. And felt the vision take him before he could resist.
---
*He was in his father's laboratory. But he was seeing through Zero's eyes, experiencing Zero's memories.*
*"I'm telling you, Takeshi, this is wrong." Zero's voice, but younger. More human. "Look at the test results. Every subject loses something essential. They become... hollow."*
*"But they survive." His father, stubborn, desperate. "And they're powerful enough to defend against the border incursions. Isn't that what the FDI wants?"*
*"The FDI wants weapons. I want to remain human." Zero gestured at himself. "I can feel it, brother. Every day I feel more of myself slipping away. The emotions that made me who I was—they're becoming distant. Like memories of someone else's life."*
*"Then we'll reverse it. I can design a process to remove the Core integration—"*
*"You can't remove it! It's woven into my neural structure at the quantum level! The only way to remove it is to kill me!" Zero's frustration was palpable. "Don't you understand? I made a sacrifice. Gave up my humanity to protect humanity. And now you're saying it was for nothing?"*
*"It doesn't have to be for nothing. We can use what we learned to create something better. Safer. A version of the enhancement that doesn't destroy the soul."*
*Zero laughed—bitter, broken. "Like what? Like those fragments you're putting in your unborn son?"*
*His father froze. "How did you know about that?"*
*"Because I helped you design them, you idiot! I may have lost my emotions, but I didn't lose my intelligence." Zero's gray eyes bored into his brother. "You're doing to your child what was done to me. You're making him into a weapon before he's even born. And you're calling it protection? Calling it love?"*
*"It's not the same. The fragments are micro-scale. Controlled. He'll have the enhancements without the psychological damage—"*
*"You don't know that! You're experimenting on your own son! And when it goes wrong, when he turns out like me or worse, what then? Will you destroy him too?"*
*"I'm not destroying you!"*
*"Then what do you call this?" Zero gestured at the shutdown codes displayed on Takeshi's screen. "You're planning to kill the Core. Kill the only thing keeping me alive. That's destroying me, brother. Just with more steps."*
*The memory shifted, jumped forward in time.*
*Zero standing over his brother's body. The Crimson Core in his hand. Takeshi's blood on the floor.*
*"I'm sorry," Zero whispered, and his voice broke—the last time he would feel genuine emotion. "But I can't let you destroy it. Can't let you destroy me. The Core is all I have left."*
*He looked directly at the camera recording everything. Directly at the son who would one day watch this.*
*"Ryo. If you're seeing this, if you survived, then the fragments worked. You're what your father wanted to create—a person strong enough to wield the Core's power without being consumed."*
*Zero's expression was haunted. Human for just a moment.*
*"But he was wrong about one thing. You can't wield this power. You can only survive it. And surviving isn't the same as living. Remember that. Please. Don't make my mistakes."*
*Then the Core's energy flooded through him, and his eyes went dead, and whatever remained of Ezekiel Vance disappeared forever.*
*Leaving only Zero.*
---
Ryo came back to himself on his knees in the sand, tears streaming down his face, Sera holding him.
"I've got you," she was saying. "You're okay. You're here. You're safe."
"He tried to warn me." Ryo's voice was hoarse. "Zero. Before he became Zero. He tried to warn my father. Told him the fragments would do the same thing. And my father didn't listen."
"Your father was trying to protect you—"
"My father was experimenting on me! Before I was even born! He turned me into a weapon and called it love!" Ryo pulled away, standing unsteadily. "Zero was right. I'm not a person. I'm a project. A failed attempt to create the perfect soldier without the messy side effects."
"That's not true—"
"Isn't it?" Ryo's eyes flickered red. "My entire life has been shaped by something I never chose. Every decision, every action, influenced by fragments that were forced into my body without my consent. I'm not Ryo Kazehara. I'm just... a carrying case for my father's guilt."
"Stop." Sera grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. "You're spiraling. The fragments are using these memories to break you down. Don't let them."
"What if they're showing me the truth?"
"Then the truth is incomplete. Because I know you, Ryo. I've fought beside you. Bled with you. Watched you make a hundred decisions that had nothing to do with the fragments and everything to do with who you are." She held his gaze. "Your father may have given you those fragments. But you gave yourself everything else. The courage. The determination. The humanity that keeps you from becoming another Zero."
Ryo wanted to believe her. But the fragments whispered doubt.
*She doesn't understand. She can't. She's fully human. She doesn't know what it's like to have your thoughts optimized, your emotions suppressed, your very identity rewritten by technology you can't escape.*
"I need to destroy them," Ryo said suddenly. "All of them. The fragment from the water tower. The ones inside me. Every piece of the Crimson Core. Even if it kills me."
"It will kill you. The fragments are integrated into your neural system. Removing them isn't surgery—it's death."
"Better death than becoming Zero."
"No." Sera's voice was steel. "You don't get to choose death. You get to choose to keep fighting. To keep proving that you're stronger than any weapon. To keep being the person who saved me, who saved Glitch, who saved everyone at that scrapyard."
"For how long? Until the next vision? The next time I lose control?" Ryo's voice broke. "I'm scared, Sera. Every day I can feel more of myself disappearing. More of Zero taking over. And I don't know how to stop it."
Sera was quiet for a moment. Then she did something unexpected.
She kissed him again.
Longer this time. Deeper. A promise and a challenge and a lifeline all at once.
When she pulled back, her eyes were fierce.
"You stop it by remembering this. By remembering that you're not a weapon—you're a person. A person I happen to care about quite a bit." She pressed her forehead against his. "And I don't care about weapons, Kazehara. I care about you. The real you. The one who exists beneath the fragments and the power and the fear."
Ryo closed his eyes, holding onto her, holding onto this moment of human connection that the fragments couldn't quantify or optimize or understand.
And slowly, the red light in his eyes faded.
"Thank you," he whispered.
"Don't thank me. Just promise you'll keep fighting. Not the fragments—they're part of you now. But the fear. The doubt. The voice that says you're not human." Sera pulled back, meeting his gaze. "Promise me."
"I promise."
They stood there in the desert heat, two broken people holding each other together, while the Scorched Wastes stretched endlessly around them.
Then Sera's cybernetic eye picked up something.
"Ryo. Movement. Three o'clock. About a mile out."
Ryo's enhanced vision kicked in automatically. He saw them—five figures on sand-bikes, moving fast, kicking up massive dust plumes.
"Are they following us?" Sera asked.
"I don't think so. They're not headed toward us—more like intercepting. Like they knew where we'd be." Ryo magnified his vision further. "They're wearing armor. FDI markings."
"How did they find us?"
Ryo thought about it. Then felt his blood run cold.
"The fragment. The one from the water tower." He pulled it out of the lead-lined case. Even contained, it was emitting a faint energy signature. "It's broadcasting. The FDI must have tagged it with a tracker when they created it. They've been following it this whole time."
"So they know where we're going."
"And they'll beat us there." Ryo looked at the approaching bikes, then at the horizon where Red Glass Valley waited. "We need to move. Now."
They jumped on the sand-skiff. Sera pushed the engines to maximum, racing across the broken glass desert.
But behind them, the FDI bikes were gaining.
And ahead, somewhere in the radioactive ruins of Red Glass Valley, the final fragment of the Crimson Core waited.
The last piece of the weapon that had destroyed Ryo's family.
The last piece of the weapon that was slowly destroying him.
And very soon, everyone was going to converge on it at once.
"This is going to get ugly, isn't it?" Sera shouted over the engines.
"Yeah," Ryo said, checking his revolvers. "Yeah, it is."
The sand rushed beneath them, blood-red in the afternoon sun.
And Ryo Kazehara, weapon and human, son and experiment, prepared for the battle that would decide his fate.
One way or another.
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**END OF CHAPTER 13**
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