Keep a box of GDP E309 Hot in your workshop. The day you weld a rusty carbon steel bracket to a stainless sink, you will thank yourself.

Ruiz’s visor reflected the desert sky. He weighed bureaucracy against an odd, dangerous empathy and found the latter wanting. “We have orders,” he said.

A crow cawed in the distance, a mundane sound that punched through the engineered hush. A shadow passed over the salt flats: a transport drone the size of a barn. Two more followed, black against the sun. Mara’s radio erupted into a storm of static and redband callsigns she didn't know. Military frequency. Command frequency. All converging.