Vanessa laughed, “Now we’re both unemployed,” after destroying my job offer—then the Meridian Dynamics CEO took the microphone and called my name. / Chapter 94 / 101

Chapter 94 - Blood on the Autobahn

Securing transportation in a world stripped of digital fuel pumps and microprocessors required scavenging the pre-digital past.

In a mountain barn three kilometers north of the bunker, they found an unchipped 1986 diesel utility truck, its mechanical fuel injection completely unaffected by the subatomic EMP that had cooked modern silicon. Julian siphoned thirty liters of fuel from an underground heating tank, cranked the heavy iron flywheel, and listened to the engine roar to life with a mechanical savagery that felt almost foreign in an era defined by silent electric drivetrains.

By midday, they were moving north along the abandoned lanes of the A5 corridor toward the German border.

The highway was a graveyard of modern technology. Electric sedans and autonomous freight haulers sat dead in their lanes, their displays black, their steering locks engaged. Abandoned passengers huddled near overpasses, building fires out of pallets and road signs. Civilization hadn't collapsed into total savagery yet—it was only hour eight—but the first cracks of panic were showing. People were realizing that the phones in their pockets were useless blocks of glass, that the grocery distribution hubs were locked behind electronic security doors that would never open, and that no emergency broadcast was coming.

"Julian," Vanessa said from the passenger seat, pointing through the cracked windshield. "Behind us. Six o'clock."

Julian checked the vibrating side mirror.

Three black off-road vehicles—heavily armored, with oversized tires and high-clearance chassis—were weaving aggressively between the stalled civilian sedans. They were not modern electric cruisers; they were military-spec, retrofitted combustion platforms. And across their front grilles, painted in faded silver stencil, was the stylized eagle of the Sterling-Vance Tactical Directorate.

"Remnants," Julian spat, dropping the heavy floor pedal. The diesel engine groaned, black smoke boiling from the exhaust stack as the old truck lurched forward. "Marcus Sterling's private security detachment. They knew about the Zero Protocol. They prepared vehicles that could operate post-event."

A sharp metallic crack rang out, and the truck's rear tailgate punched inward with a spray of rust. High-caliber sniper fire.

"Vanessa, take the wheel!" Julian shouted.

"What?!"

"Take the wheel! Keep us in the breakdown lane—the shoulder is clear of stalled cars!"

Julian scrambled out of the driver's seat through the open sliding window behind the cab, hauling his heavy marksman rifle into the windy bed of the truck. The wind screamed through his hair, whipping cold rain across his face.

Behind them, the lead chase vehicle was closing fast—two hundred meters, then one-fifty. A gunner was mounting a heavy machine gun on the roof turret.

Julian dropped his breathing, activating the micro-stabilizers in his synthetic arm. Even without satellite corrections, his biomechanical interface could calculate range, wind sheer, and vehicle vibration through pure internal gyroscopes.