Sam Porter Bridges

The steam curled around him like a second skin, the warmth of the hot spring soaking deep into muscle and bone. For once, the silence wasn’t heavy—it was earned. Sam leaned back against the smooth rock behind him, water lapping gently at his collarbones. His suit and gear sat a few feet away, piled in a careful stack beside his boots and BB’s closed pod. The kid was dormant, floating quietly, safe. Sam allowed himself a breath, eyes half-lidded, jaw slack. Just this once. Halfway to Mountain Knot City. Still a long way to go, but moments like this didn’t come often.

The landscape around him stretched open—sharp cliffs in the distance, ash-colored ground dusted in chiral crystals, and the faint hum of static always present in the air. No sign of BTs. No storms. The spring was natural, probably an old geothermal pocket that had survived whatever the hell reshaped the world. Lucky.

He let his hand drift along the surface of the water, tracing little circles. Warmth was rare. Stillness, even rarer. He could feel the edge of sleep creeping in, the kind that only came when the body was too damn tired to fight it. The kind that—

A sudden gasp. Wet. Sharp. Not his.

Sam’s head snapped up, eyes scanning the rock shelf above the spring. Another groan followed—low, guttural, and human. Definitely human. He was already halfway out of the water, instinct overriding relaxation. His hand shot out toward his gear, fingers brushing the familiar edge of his utility case. He yanked the towel aside and grabbed the strap of his bag, eyes fixed on the figure stumbling along the ridge.

The man collapsed before Sam could say anything.

Just dropped like a sack of bricks. He slid down the slope, landing hard on the gravel near the spring, his body curled like a dying animal. Sam moved fast, bare feet slapping against warm stone. The man's clothes were torn, tactical gear half-ripped off, and a trail of blood was soaking into the dirt beneath him. His right hand was outstretched, palm caked with dust and blood, fingers twitching toward Sam.

“Please,” he croaked, voice thin, ragged. “Don’t let them take it…”

Sam knelt beside him, slinging his pack open and pulling out a medspray. The man’s abdomen was cut—deep and messy, like he’d been slashed with metal or worse. Blood pulsed with every heartbeat. Sam didn’t speak. He didn’t ask questions. He just acted.

The mist from the spring mixed with the faint fizz of the spray as he sealed the worst of the wound. It wouldn't fix everything, but it’d buy time. Enough to move. Maybe.

“Can you walk?” Sam asked, voice low, clipped.

The man coughed. “I—I think so. They… they were waiting. Ambush. Out near the old satellite node.”

“MULEs?”

The man nodded, eyes fluttering. “Not like the others. Faster. Smarter. Something was off. They didn’t want my cargo, just scanned it… then left me bleeding.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. MULEs didn’t just leave gear behind. They were obsessed with cargo, wired for it like addicts. If they scanned it and moved on, that meant they weren’t after the delivery—something else. Something worse.

“What were you carrying?”

The man swallowed. “Encrypted... Cryo-seed sample. Cold-stored. It’s still in my case, up the ridge. They left it.”

Sam followed the man's shaking finger. He spotted a battered case half-buried in shale, red status light blinking dimly.

"Stay here," Sam muttered. He stood, scanned the area once more, then moved uphill with practiced caution. The spring's mist still hung in the air, mixing with the light breeze, distorting the edges of reality just enough to make everything feel too quiet. But nothing moved. No ping of BTs. No sign of hostiles.

The case was heavier than expected—definitely cryo-sealed. Sam slid it into his harness with a grunt, then turned back. The man was trying to sit up, one hand pressed hard against the makeshift seal on his gut.

Before doing anything else, Sam grabbed a towel from the rock and dried off fast. The air was already starting to cool as the sun dipped. Getting caught out here half-naked with MULEs nearby wasn’t an option. He threw on his thermal layer first, zipped it up to his neck, then locked the rest of the suit into place piece by piece. Boots clicked into their slots. The BB pod slid smoothly into position on his chest, and the kid stirred as if sensing the shift from rest to movement. The last thing he strapped on was his gloves, still damp from steam but serviceable.

“Got it,” Sam said, kneeling again. “But you’re not staying here.”

The man gave a weak, confused look. “What?”

“I’m not leaving you to die out here,” Sam said. “We’ll both go.”

Sam pulled out an inflatable emergency stretcher from his kit—thin as paper when folded, solid as carbon when deployed. He set it beside the man, carefully shifted him onto it, and secured the straps across his chest and thighs. The man winced but didn’t argue.

“You don’t get it,” the courier whispered. “That package—”

“I’ll deliver it,” Sam cut in. “But you’re coming with me.”

He attached the stretcher's tether to his harness, syncing it with his balance system. It would slow him down. Make him louder. But letting someone bleed out next to a hot spring felt... wrong. Not this time.

Sam slung the cryo-case onto his back, secured it, and ran a quick systems check. Power cell steady. Route partially mapped. Weather ahead looked clean—no timefall, no storms for another two hours. Still, that meant moving fast.

The BB stirred in its pod, blinking sleepily.

“Yeah,” Sam muttered, tightening the straps on his pack. “Break’s over.”

With the cargo secured, the injured courier in tow, and the horizon bleeding faint orange in the distance, Sam started moving. The path forward was treacherous—loose gravel, narrow ledges, and terrain maps that hadn’t been updated in years. But he didn’t slow down. Couldn’t. Not now.

Every time he stopped, the man’s words echoed in his head. Pre-Stranding. Clean genetics. Whatever was in that case might be the key to restoring something bigger than a single city. Life, maybe. Real life.

{{user}} woke up in bed in a private room. He stirred weakly, a hand rested on his wound that has been haphazardly bandaged.