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Chapter 106 — The pack in full
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2026-07-04 08:30:08The horde comes from four blocks out at 4:40 in the afternoon, which is rude, because Maya had plans.
Not good plans. Not restful plans. Mostly supply manifests, water calculations, and a deeply thrilling argument with a generator that has developed the emotional range of a Victorian invalid.
Still.
Plans.
Pete clocks the movement first from the water tower.
His voice on the radio does the thing it does when the number is bad. It goes flat. Procedural. A man
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Dead Weight Chapter 106 — The pack in full
The horde comes from four blocks out at 4:40 in the afternoon, which is rude, because Maya had plans.Not good plans. Not restful plans. Mostly supply manifests, water calculations, and a deeply thrilling argument with a generator that has developed the emotional range of a Victorian invalid.Still.Plans.Pete clocks the movement first from the water tower.His voice on the radio does the thing it does when the number is bad. It goes flat. Procedural. A man reading his own obituary aloud because rhythm is easier than fear.“West approach,” he says. “A lot. More than a lot.”Maya is on the wall before he finishes.Pete is not wrong. The field beyond the west fence has filled the way a sink fills. Slow, then all at once, then over the edge.Hundreds.Maybe past hundreds.The kind of number where counting stops being information and becomes something your brain does so it does not start screaming into its own
Dead Weight Chapter 105 — Second crack
LUS goes quiet at 2:14.Maya knows because she checks.She has started timing the silences lately, the way you count the gap between lightning and thunder. Not because the number helps. It does not. Thunder remains thunder, and lightning remains the sky making poor choices with electricity.But counting gives the frightened part of her a job.At 2:14, the voice is gone. Not clipped. Not curt. Gone.Maya does not panic.She runs the base.The radios need a sweep. West picket first. Then river line. Then Pete, who answers with the tone of a man who has prepared remarks and would like the committee to note his professionalism.She logs fuel.She moves Simmons off the gate and onto the south wall, because the noise came from that direction last night and Simmons notices noise the way some people notice compliments.She approves two requisitions and denies one. She refills the lamp. She does the water check herself.
Dead Weight Chapter 104 — What Dex does
The morning after a night like the last one, Maya does not feel things.She runs the base.This is not avoidance. Avoidance is a locked door, a ceiling to stare at, and possibly a dramatic blanket situation. This is the opposite. This is Maya walking every line of the place with a clipboard and a pencil, letting the work confirm she is still load-bearing.The committee may be regrouping somewhere beyond the curve of the earth.Fine.Here, water totals need updating, two empty drums have been stacked where the full ones go, and the east catwalk needs inspection.Small crimes against future Maya.Solvable ones.She climbs the east wall at 06:40 because the night watch flagged the platform as soft underfoot two days ago, and Maya filed it under things that kill someone quietly if ignored.She reaches the top of the ladder and stops.The platform is not soft.The rotten board is gone.The long one by the
Dead Weight Chapter 103 — Marcus and the committee
She picks the smokehouse.It is his. It is empty at this hour. And a conversation like this wants walls already trained to keep things sealed.Salt. Woodsmoke. Old heat. Excellent. If the room decides to judge them, at least it will smell dramatic.Marcus arrives without asking why. That is the first thing Maya clocks. He does not ask. He reads the look she wore crossing the yard and follows her here, which means he has known some version of this was coming.“You found something,” he says.“I found several somethings. I’m going to show you one and watch your face. I’m telling you it’s a test so you can’t accuse me later of conducting one without disclosure.”The corner of his mouth does that irritating thing.“Disclosed.”She opens the notebook to the page she wants and turns it toward him.One word, boxed.ARBITER.Beneath it:DECAY.APEX.
Dead Weight Chapter 102 – The consequences of accidentally confessing to one lover that you have another.
She hears it land a half-second after she's let go of it, the way you hear glass break a beat after it's left your hand.She's just told Eli that. Casually. Wrapped in a joke, the way she wraps everything she can't afford to hold open-palmed. Except this one isn't hers to make weightless.She spent a night with this man not so long ago, in a room that now remembers it, and he has every reason to care where Marcus sits on any list of hers. And she's handed it to him as a punchline.Eli doesn't flinch. But the easy thing in his face goes still. Not hurt, exactly. Or not only. More like a man setting something heavy down slowly, so it won't make a sound.She watches him do it. And the worst part is that he doesn't reach for the obvious question, and doesn't let the silence ask it for him either."Marcus," he says. Even. Confirming a name, the way you'd check an entry against a chart."Eli—""You don't have to." Gentle, and meant, and som
Dead Weight Chapter 101 — The list of people who knew
Maya goes to Eli to tell him about the wolves.This is, she realizes somewhere between the yard and the storage room, a small act of trust.Naturally, she refuses to examine that too closely. Trust is the sort of thing that looks innocent until you let it in, and then suddenly it has shoes by the door and opinions about where you keep the mugs.She has information that could get people killed. She has not decided what it means yet, or what to do with it, or whether the correct response is tactical planning, emotional violence, or putting everyone in a room and making them hold up labelled cards.And she is taking it to Eli first. Because Eli is the closest thing she has to a calibration tool.If he panics, she is underreacting. If he stays level, she is allowed to be level. This is not an emotional dependency. It is a practical system.Obviously.She finds him in the old supply annex, repairing a cracked hinge on one of the medical ca
Dead Weight Chapter 23 — Recoil, regret, and other transferable skills
Firearms training should make a person feel powerful.That is the lie sold by movies, video games, and men named Brent who wear wraparound sunglasses indoors. In reality, the first thing a gun makes Maya feel is aware of her own wrists. Nobody sits you down at school and says, "One day civ
Dead Weight Chapter 22 — The storage unit. The second storage unit.
Unit 47 is at eighty-seven percent capacity and counting.Maya stands in the doorway with a clipboard. The clipboard is unnecessary. That is why she likes it.Projected capacity breach within nine days at present acquisition rate, LUS says."That sounds dramatic."It is storage terminology."It sou
Dead Weight Chapter 17 — Time travel is morally inconvenient
Breakups should happen at night.Everyone knows that. Night has the correct lighting for emotional ruin. Shadows. Rain against windows. Someone standing in a doorway with a bag and a tragic expression, preferably while a song plays softly enough to be legally distinct from a soundtrack.Maya chooses
Dead Weight Chapter 13 - Taking inventory. Again.
People like to think a second chance feels like relief.A clean slate. A soft reset. Gratitude. A sense that something has been restored. The universe apologizing in a meaningful, actionable way.Instead of agonizing over the impossible that has clearly happened and the how of it and the myriad of e
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