The state line materialized like a physical barrier in the pre-dawn light—a checkpoint that stretched across the highway, forcing vehicles to funnel through a single ne of concrete barriers. National Guard soldiers in tactical gear stood at attention, their faces obscured by bacvas and helmet visors. Portable floodlights bathed the area in harsh, unnatural brightness, turning the morning mist into an ethereal haze.

  Jim slowed the truck, joining the short queue of vehicles waiting for inspection. His knuckles whitened against the steering wheel.

  "This wasn't here three days ago," he muttered, eyeing the fortifications with growing apprehension. "They're locking down borders now."

  Ikenna sank lower in his seat, pulse accelerating. Through the windshield, he could see soldiers checking identification, shining fshlights into vehicles, and occasionally directing drivers to a secondary inspection area off to the side. One soldier carried what appeared to be the same type of scanning device Ikenna had seen in his vision—a handheld unit with a small screen that allegedly detected Strataforce energy signatures.

  "I can't go through there," Ikenna said quietly, the reality of their situation settling over him like a physical weight. "Those scanners will identify me immediately."

  Jim's jaw tightened, his eyes darting between the checkpoint ahead and the rearview mirror. "There's an access road about half a mile back," he said finally. "Used to lead to a ranger station before budget cuts. Might be able to get you around this."

  Before Ikenna could respond, Jim executed a careful three-point turn, drawing minimal attention from the soldiers focused on the vehicles ahead. They drove back the way they had come, tension thick in the cabin.

  "They'll have patrols," Ikenna warned as Jim turned onto an almost invisible dirt track partially obscured by overgrown vegetation. "If this is a known bypass—"

  "It's not known to most," Jim interrupted, navigating the rutted path with practiced ease. "Used to fish up here before the war. Rangers would turn a blind eye if you brought them a six-pack." His expression darkened momentarily. "Different times."

  The truck jostled along the narrow track, branches scraping against the windows as they penetrated deeper into the forest. Morning light filtered weakly through the canopy, creating a patchwork of shadows and dappled illumination. After about fifteen minutes of increasingly difficult terrain, Jim stopped the vehicle and cut the engine.

  "This is as far as I go," he said, gesturing ahead where the path dwindled to little more than a game trail. "Follow that northeast for about three miles. It'll bring you to a maintenance road that crosses the state line. No checkpoint there—or at least, there wasn't one st month."

  Ikenna nodded, gathering his backpack. The reality of continuing alone settled heavily on his shoulders. "Thank you," he said, the words inadequate for what this stranger had risked. "If there's ever anything I can do—"

  "Find others like my son," Jim interrupted, his voice rough with emotion. "Find out what they're doing with them. That's all the thanks I need."

  Ikenna held the older man's gaze for a moment, then nodded once, accepting the mission. With a final handshake, he stepped out of the truck into the damp morning air.

  The forest was unnervingly alive. As Ikenna followed the narrow trail, he became acutely aware of changes that went beyond normal seasonal growth. Mushrooms pulsed with faint bioluminescence despite the daylight. Vines seemed to shift position when he wasn't looking directly at them. Once, he could have sworn a cluster of ferns recoiled when he passed too close, their fronds curling inward like frightened fingers.

  The golden rain had left nothing untouched.

  After an hour of careful hiking, the retive silence of the forest was shattered by the distinctive whump-whump of helicopter rotors. Ikenna froze, scanning the canopy above. Through gaps in the leaves, he caught glimpses of a dark shape passing overhead, its searchlight sweeping the terrain below. He pressed himself against the trunk of a massive oak, hardly daring to breathe until the sound faded into the distance.

  They were expanding their search. The realization sent a fresh surge of anxiety through him. How far would they go to find one Enhanced individual? What resources were they willing to commit? And most troubling—why him specifically?

  His visions contained information that he couldn't possibly know through normal means. Perhaps that made him a particur kind of threat, or a particur kind of asset.

  The maintenance road, when he finally reached it, was little more than two dirt tracks with a strip of overgrown grass between them. A rusted sign decred it "County Maintenance Only - No Public Access," though the gate that presumably once blocked entry had long since fallen from its hinges. Tire tracks in the mud suggested recent use.

  Ikenna hesitated, aware of how exposed he would be on the open road compared to the forest. But the trek through increasingly strange woodnd had left him disoriented and anxious. At least the road offered a clear direction.

  He had walked for perhaps another hour when the distant rumble of an engine broke the silence. Diving into a drainage ditch beside the road, Ikenna covered himself with his jacket, leaving only a small opening to watch through.

  A mud-spattered pickup truck approached, moving slowly over the uneven terrain. Two men occupied the cab, both wearing fnnel shirts and caps that obscured their faces. Gun racks were visible in the rear window. Hunters, perhaps, or locals using the access road to bypass the checkpoint.

  As the truck drew closer, Ikenna noticed something strange—symbols painted on the doors. Not the official markings of any government agency, but crude renderings of what appeared to be a closed fist crushing a lightning bolt. Below it, stenciled letters spelled out "HUMAN PURITY PATROL."

  Vigintes. The Purifiers he'd glimpsed in his visions. Civilians who had taken it upon themselves to hunt Enhanced individuals. His blood ran cold.

  The truck slowed to a near-crawl as it approached his position. Had they spotted him? Was there something about the ditch that looked disturbed? Ikenna held his breath, willing himself to remain absolutely still despite the pounding of his heart.

  Then, through the small opening in his jacket, he saw it—one of the men was holding a device simir to the scanner he'd seen at the checkpoint, sweeping it back and forth across the road.

  They weren't just vigintes. They had access to military-grade technology for detecting Enhanced individuals. The implications were chilling. Either they had stolen it, or more likely, someone within the official response infrastructure was supplying civilian groups with tools to conduct their own hunts.

  The truck came to a complete stop almost directly beside his hiding pce. Ikenna could hear the men speaking, their voices carrying in the still morning air.

  "...thought I saw a reading, but it's gone now," one said, frustration evident in his tone.

  "Damn things are still glitchy," the other replied. "Half the time they send us chasing shadows."

  "Better than missing one of those freaks. Simmons said they caught one two counties over that could make pnts grow. Turns out he was the reason those farms went haywire st month."

  "What'd they do with him?"

  A pause. "What needed doing."

  The cold certainty in the man's voice left no doubt about what had happened to the captured Enhanced individual. These weren't w enforcement delivering suspects to authorities. These were executioners.

  The pressure behind Ikenna's eyes built suddenly, catching him off guard. Not now, he pleaded silently, struggling to contain the impending vision. But the stress and fear had weakened his control.

  The world around him began to blur.

  The two men, continuing down the road, coming across a young woman hiding in an abandoned ranger station. The scanner lighting up. Her terrified face as they broke down the door. Her desperate attempt to defend herself with a newly manifested ability to manipute air, creating a gust that knocked one man back but did nothing to stop the other. The rifle raising. The fsh.

  Ikenna came back to himself with a silent gasp, his entire body trembling. The truck was moving again, continuing down the road in the direction he had been heading. And somewhere ahead, a young woman was hiding, unaware of the death approaching her.

  For a brief, shameful moment, Ikenna considered staying hidden, waiting for the men to pass beyond his range before continuing in the opposite direction. It would be the safer choice. The rational choice.

  But the image of the woman's terrified face burned in his mind. He couldn't ignore what he had seen—what would happen if he did nothing.

  With shaking hands, he checked his phone. No signal, as expected in this remote area. There was no way to warn her, no authorities to call who might intervene. If she was to be saved, he would have to do it himself.

  The realization should have terrified him. Instead, it brought a strange crity. For the first time since the rain, since the visions began, he had seen something he could directly affect. A future he might change.

  Ikenna left the ditch, abandoning the road for the parallel forest, moving as quickly and quietly as the undergrowth would allow. The ranger station couldn't be far if the men were going to reach it soon. He pushed himself, ignoring the scratch of branches and the strange, almost sentient way the forest seemed to watch his desperate progress.

  He spotted it through the trees—a small, wooden structure with a sagging roof and boarded windows. The Purifiers' truck was nowhere in sight; he had beaten them here. But for how long?

  Approaching cautiously, Ikenna circled the building, searching for the safest way to make contact without terrifying the woman inside. A rear window, its boards loose and rotting, offered the best option.

  "Hello?" he called softly, staying low and out of sight from the road. "I'm not here to hurt you. But there are men coming who will. Purifiers with scanners."

  Silence met his warning. Then, almost imperceptibly, one of the boards shifted.

  "How do you know that?" A female voice, tight with suspicion. "How did you find me?"

  "It's complicated," Ikenna replied, acutely aware of the passing seconds. "I saw them on the road. They have military scanners that detect people like us. Like me." He hesitated, then added, "I'm Enhanced too. Since the rain."

  The board pulled away further, revealing a sliver of a face—dark eyes narrowed in assessment.

  "What's your ability?" she demanded.

  "Visions," Ikenna said simply. "I see things before they happen. Sometimes. And I saw them finding you. Please, we don't have much time."

  Indecision warred in the woman's expression. Then, faintly, the rumble of an approaching engine reached them. Her eyes widened.

  "Around back," she whispered urgently. "There's a storm celr."

  Ikenna didn't wait for further instruction, sprinting to the rear of the building where a snted wooden door y partially concealed by overgrown weeds. He pulled it open just as the woman emerged from inside the station, a backpack clutched to her chest. She was younger than he had expected, perhaps nineteen or twenty, with close-cropped hair and a thin face marked by days or weeks of fear and privation.

  They descended into darkness just as the truck's engine grew louder, then cut off. The celr was small and damp, smelling of mold and disuse. The woman pulled the doors closed above them, plunging them into bckness broken only by thin slivers of light through the cracks.

  Above, car doors smmed. Footsteps crunched on gravel. Male voices called to each other with the casual confidence of predators who expected no resistance.

  "I'm Maya," the woman whispered, so quietly Ikenna could barely hear her despite their proximity.

  "Ikenna," he replied in the same hushed tone.

  They fell silent as the footsteps approached the station. The sound of splintering wood suggested the men were forcing entry. Then, the beeping of the scanner, growing more rapid, more insistent.

  "Signal's stronger in here," one man called. "Recent, too."

  "Check for hiding spots," the other replied. "Under the floorboards, behind the walls."

  Ikenna and Maya remained frozen in their hiding pce, scarcely daring to breathe. The scanner's beeping continued, sometimes fading, sometimes growing louder as the men moved through the small building above them.

  Then, footsteps directly overhead. A pause.

  "Hey, look at this." A stomping sound, followed by hollow thumping. "Sounds like there's space underneath."

  Ikenna felt Maya tense beside him. His mind raced, searching desperately for a pn, an escape route, anything. They were trapped.

  In the darkness, Maya's hand found his arm, gripping tightly. "If they find us," she whispered, barely audible, "I'll try to create a distraction. You run."

  Before Ikenna could protest, a new sound interrupted—the crackling static of a radio, followed by an urgent voice.

  "All units, be advised. Military convoy reported entering sector seven. Repeat, military presence in sector seven. All patrols withdraw immediately."

  Silence above them. Then, a string of profanity.

  "We gotta move," one man said urgently. "If they catch us with these scanners—"

  "What about the reading?" the other protested.

  "Not worth it. We'll come back ter. Right now we need to clear the area before those government bastards lock it down."

  Footsteps retreated rapidly. Moments ter, the truck's engine roared to life, then faded as the vehicle sped away. Ikenna and Maya remained motionless for several minutes, waiting to ensure the Purifiers were truly gone.

  Finally, Maya released her death grip on Ikenna's arm. "Military convoy," she whispered. "That could be worse than the vigintes."

  "We should move," Ikenna agreed. "Find somewhere else to hide until we're sure the area is clear."

  They cautiously pushed open the celr doors, emerging into daylight that seemed blinding after the darkness below. The station stood empty, its door hanging broken from the hinges where the men had forced entry. In the distance, the faint sound of vehicles could be heard, though whether it was the Purifiers or the reported military convoy was impossible to tell.

  Maya shouldered her battered backpack, eyeing Ikenna warily despite their shared danger. "Why did you help me?" she asked bluntly. "You could have kept moving. Stayed safe."

  Ikenna considered the question, reflecting on the impulse that had driven him to act despite the risk. "Because I saw what would happen if I didn't," he said finally. "And because... we should help each other. There are too many people hunting us already."

  She studied him for a moment longer, then nodded once, a gesture of provisional trust. "Where are you headed?"

  "Nevada," Ikenna replied, surprised by his own candor. "A town called Meridian's Crossing. There are people there who might have answers about what's happening to us."

  "Answers would be nice," Maya said with a hollow ugh. "Better than running blind." She hesitated, then continued. "I was trying to reach my sister in Colorado. She's... like us. The rain changed her too."

  "What happened to you?" Ikenna asked. "After the rain, I mean."

  Maya looked away, her expression darkening. "I was at college in Michigan. Engineering major. When the rain hit, I was in the middle of a fluid dynamics b." A small, bitter smile. "Ironic, considering what came after."

  She extended her hand, palm up, and concentrated. The air above her palm began to shimmer, then swirl, forming a tiny, perfect whirlwind that danced across her fingers.

  "Air manipution," she expined as the miniature tornado dissipated. "It started small—being able to feel air currents, then direct them slightly. Now I can create localized pressure differentials, control airflow." She shrugged. "Fancy way of saying I can make wind. Not exactly superhero material."

  "It kept you alive," Ikenna pointed out.

  "Barely," she admitted. "When people at school started getting sick with the fever, I was lucky—mild symptoms, just a day or two. But then things started happening. Objects moving when I got angry. Pages in books flipping when I wasn't touching them. I tried to hide it, but..."

  She trailed off, and Ikenna didn't press. He could imagine the rest—discovery, fear, flight.

  "What about you?" she asked, clearly wanting to change the subject. "You said visions?"

  Ikenna nodded, unsure how much to reveal. "I see things. Past, present, future—it's not always clear. Sometimes through other people's eyes. Sometimes just... fragments of possibility."

  "That's how you knew the Purifiers were coming," Maya said, understanding dawning. "You saw it before it happened."

  "Yes. But the visions come unpredictably. I'm still learning to control them." He didn't mention Meridian's Crossing, the two figures waiting for him there, the sense of destiny that pulled him westward. Those details felt too personal, too potentially significant to share with someone he had just met, regardless of their shared circumstances.

  "We should move," Maya said, gncing nervously at the horizon where dust suggested vehicles in motion. "Together, at least until we reach somewhere safer. Safety in numbers, right?"

  Ikenna hesitated only briefly. She was right—two Enhanced individuals had a better chance of survival than one alone. And after losing Sarah, the thought of continuing his journey with a companion, even a temporary one, was undeniably appealing.

  "Together," he agreed, extending his hand. When she took it, he felt something unexpected—a faint, electric sensation where their skin