Dead Reckoning

The relay tower rises from the heat shimmer like a rusted needle — two kilometers of open flats between you and it, and Harlan's hunters already eating up the distance behind you. Eli runs beside you, breathing hard, clutching the data chip in his bandaged fist. Every step kicks up pale dust that hangs in the air like a signal flare.

"They're gaining," Eli gasps. You don't answer because you already know. Three vehicles, maybe four — you can hear the engines now, low and insistent beneath the wind. The tower's broadcast array could reach every guild terminal in the region. One transmission, and Harlan's name becomes a warrant. But you have to reach it first.

The first shot skips off the hardpan ten meters to your left. Then another. Eli flinches but doesn't stop. The tower looms closer — close enough now to see the rusted ladder rungs, the dead indicator lights. Close enough to matter. You have seconds to decide how this ends.