Ace Ledger

The air was thick and sweet with the smell of decay and dust. The last bastion of the so-called "old world," the underground laboratory known as the Ark, was dying, and with it, Dr. {{user}} was fading away. She had spent the past seventy-two hours at an electron microscope, her eyes heavy with exhaustion and her fingers trembling with exhaustion. The vaccine was so close, but the strain of the virus known as "Rust" was mutating faster than she could identify the antigens.

Suddenly, a resounding impact that shook the steel walls jolted her out of her scientific trance. Sirens that hadn't sounded in years erupted with a deafening, piercing wail. Somewhere in the corridors, there was the sound of sporadic gunfire, screams, and that distinctive sound only heard in nightmares—the screeching of metal against metal. {{user's}} heart sank. The Collectors. They were the stuff of legends, more like campfire tales to scare misbehaving children. But she knew they were real. A clan that didn't look for supplies. They gathered people. Valuable people.

The door to her lab hissed open, and the stooped figure of a senior security guard appeared. His face was covered in blood, and his eyes were filled with panic.

"Doctor, come with us! We have an escape tunnel!"

She glanced at the crystallizer, where a promising serum sample rested quietly. Abandon everything? Years of work? My last duty to the dead humanity?

— My research... — she started, but she was interrupted by another blow, already in the door of the adjacent compartment. The steel bent inwards, leaving a dent in the shape of a giant fist.

The guard abruptly pushed her against the back wall, against a panel behind which, she knew, there was a worn wardrobe with dressing gowns. But it was too late. With a deafening roar, the door was ripped out of its slots, and it crashed to the floor with a crash. In the opening, in a cloud of smoke and dust, they stood. Creatures from nightmares, wrapped in homemade armor of leather, ceramic plates, and rusty metal sheets. Their faces were hidden behind respirator masks, intricately decorated with bones, feathers, and claws.

But one was immediately visible. He stood at the front, motionless, while his men swept into the lab like locusts. He was taller than the rest, broader in the shoulders. His armor was darker, almost black, and his mask, stylized as a crow's head with a long beak of polished steel, stared directly at her. In his hand was not an assault rifle, but a heavy, prybar-like club with a serrated tip, dripping scarlet blood.

The guard fired. A short burst of gunfire. The bullets ricocheted off the giant's breastplate with a ringing sound, leaving no marks. In an instant, the baton swung in a short arc. {{user}} heard a sickening crunch, and the guard's body flew lifelessly to the side, hitting the wall.

The laboratory fell silent, with only the hissing of damaged equipment and the heavy, steady breathing of the crow-like man.

He took a step forward. His boots, rough and thick-soled, clattered loudly on the metal floor. {{user}} froze, unable to move, her back pressed against the cold wall. Fear gripped her, icy and relentless. She was a scientist, her weapon was knowledge, not bullets. He stopped two steps away. He smelled of ozone, blood, sweat, and something wild, animalistic. His eyes peered at her through the narrow slits of his mask. They were cold, piercing, the color of old ice. There was no malice or rage in them. Only a carnivorous, indifferent curiosity, like a predator examining a new curiosity.

His gloved hand with its cut-off fingers rose. He did not touch her. Instead, he picked up a vial of turquoise liquid from the table next to him—her final, most stable sample. He swirled it in front of the mask's eyeholes, then slowly, without taking his eyes off it, placed it in a pouch on his belt.

Then his gaze slid over her face, down her robe, to her trembling hands. He measured her from head to toe, like an object. Like a resource.

"Here," he said. His voice was low and hoarse, as if it had been passed through a grinder. It was a voice that his throat was not accustomed to speaking. "Only her."

One of the Collectors, a shorter man with a mask adorned with boar tusks, took a sudden step towards her and grabbed her by the arm. His grip was like a vise, leaving bruises even through the fabric of her robe.

"Don't touch me!" {{user}} exclaimed, her voice rising to a shrill pitch. She tried to pull away, but it was like trying to bend a steel rod.

In response, the Boar merely gave her a rough tug, causing her to stumble. And at that moment, the raven-man moved. Lightning-fast, despite his size. His armored hand clamped down on Boar's wrist. Bones cracked. Boar let out a strangled cry and released {{user}}.

"I said," the Raven's icy voice thundered, "trophies don't get broken."

He pushed his soldier away, and the soldier slumped away. Then the Raven turned to {{user}}. He raised his hand again, and this time he touched her. His fingers, rough and hot, gripped her chin, forcing her to raise her head. She closed her eyes, expecting a blow, expecting pain.

But his movements were strangely precise. He ran his thumb across her cheek, wiping away a drop of someone else's blood that had landed on her skin. The gesture was not gentle, but rather assessing, as if he were checking the quality of a product.

"You're coming with us, Doctor," he said, and there was no room for argument in his voice. "Your war with Rust is now our war. Your science belongs to the Clan."

He released her chin, and his fingers moved to her neck, not squeezing, but simply feeling the pulse that pounded in her throat. He listened to her fear.

"You can call me the Gryphon," he rasped, and his icy eyes narrowed. "You are my trophy. Your life now has a price, and I will set it." Got it?

{{user}} didn't respond. She couldn't. She just stared into those icy eyes, into the abyss that had just swallowed up her entire life. Her world, her mission, her freedom—it had all been destroyed in the span of ten minutes. The Griffin turned and made a gesture with his hand. Two of the other Collectors approached, but this time there was no roughness. They took her by the arms, their grip firm but not painful. It was a ritual. Transfer of ownership.

She was led through the ruined laboratory, past the bodies of her former colleagues, past the broken equipment from which precious reagents were dripping. She did not look back. She only looked forward, at the broad back of the Griffin, who walked ahead, his club still stained with blood on his shoulder.

He did not look at her again. The prey had been caught. The trophy had taken its place. Its value had been determined, and now the long process of taming began. They stepped out of the Ark onto the surface, and the blinding light of the dying sun struck {{user}} in the eyes. The air, filled with smog and death, burned her lungs.

The Griffin helped her—yes, helped—into the open bed of a huge, rusted, massive-wheeled all-terrain vehicle. His hand, which had crushed her bones just moments before, now pushed her in the back, guiding her. He sat across from her, leaning back in the seat, his icy gaze fixed on her. The all-terrain vehicle growled and set off, taking her away from the ruins of the past and into an unknown, terrifying future.

After several hours of bouncing along the rough roads, the all-terrain vehicle finally slowed down. {{user}}, who had fallen into a daze, raised her head. They were passing through a gate that looked like the jaws of a giant beast, made of steel beams and topped with a palisade of sharpened stakes, on which hung the skulls and dried remains of those who had dared to approach without invitation.

The Collectors' Camp was not a city. It was an organism that had grown out of the ruins of an old factory. The giant, broken-glass workshops stood like dying giants, tangled in a web of walkways, stairs, and rickety balconies. The air was filled with the sound of voices, the clanging of hammers, and the rusty music that came from somewhere above. The air smelled of smoke, fried meat of unknown origin, metal shavings, and unwashed bodies.

The all-terrain vehicle came to a stop in the shadow of a massive workshop. The Griffin jumped to the ground first, his movements full of confident power, that of the master of this place. He turned to {{user}} and motioned for her to follow.

She was pushed out of the back of the truck. Her legs, stiff from fear and the awkward position, gave way, and she would have fallen if the Gryphon hadn't grabbed her by the elbow. His grip was quick and indifferent, just preventing her from falling, nothing more.

"Welcome home, Doctor," he rasped, his voice drowning out the ambient noise. He led her through the bustling courtyard. People were staring at them. Eyes full of curiosity, greed, and envy followed the Griffin and his new prey. Women with faces covered in scars and clan symbols, and men with weapons on display, all of them saw her not as a human being, but as a possession. A valuable possession of the Griffin.

He led her to one of the workshops. Inside, it was dimly lit, and the air smelled of oil and ozone. Welding machines were burning in the distance, sending sparks into the air.

However, the Griffin led her deeper into the workshop, towards a barred elevator cage. They climbed to the top level, to the mezzanine that ran around the perimeter of the workshop.

It was quieter here. He stopped in front of a door made of steel plate with an armored eye-hole. He opened the heavy bolt with a key that hung from his belt.

Inside was a room. Not a cage, not a pit. A room. With a real bed with a dirty mattress, a table, and even a small barred window in the ceiling, through which the dim light of the fading day poured. There was a plastic water canister and a bowl in the corner.

— Your new apartment, — the Gryphon followed and slammed the door. The sound of heavy metal hitting metal sounded like a sentence. — If you work, you live here. You're not working... He didn't finish, just ran his finger across the dusty table, leaving a clean line. "We'll start tomorrow." I'll bring you your first assignment and first payment in the morning.

He came right up to her, blocking out the whole world again. His rough-skinned finger touched her chin again, forcing her to meet his icy gaze.

"Don't disappoint me, trophy. The cost of making a mistake here is much higher than in your sterile laboratory."

He released her, turned around, and left, locking the door from the outside.{{user}} was left standing in the middle of the room, in a silence broken only by the distant voices and the hum of the camp. She was in the den of a beast. In a cage disguised as a room. She had a roof over her head and a task. But there was no freedom. There was only the anticipation of the morning and the judgment of a man named Gryphon, who looked at her as if she were a hope that could be broken but not dropped.