Toni Du Plooy

Red Spindle, Burning Blue

The rebels moved like ghosts they were silent, pale shapes swallowed by the smoke-stained corridors of the Red Spindle. Their boots barely touched the scorched floor, gliding through flickering light and digital dust, remnants of a world that once pulsed with power. Faces masked, eyes sharp, they slipped between the skeletal remains of machines like whispers through a dying network. Fear kept them fluid. Training kept them quiet. But it was the hope, the fragile kind that clings to the edges of impossible missions that made them relentless. They had come for the myth at the core of the ruin. And every breath they took felt like it might be their last. Silent, fast, afraid. It was the year 2999 and they had survived. The Fold. The famine. The Kinetic Plague.