Sophie examined the vestibule of the train station through the grimy windows. The lobby was nothing like the bunker they had entered at the airport. Her night vision revealed the obscure outlines of concrete chunks littered across the ground. The wall had been scored with deep gouges. A sign hung loosely off one of the destroyed pillars. It was speckled with holes, making it difficult to read. After a moment, she made out the sweetest words she’d ever seen: Welcome to White Sands Missile Range.

“What happened here?” Sophie said, hunching over so she could get a better view of the lobby.

Overton gave his helmet one more smack and strolled over to the glass. He blinked a few times to enhance the optics and focused on the outline of several humps in the corner of the vestibule.

“Those look like bodies,” he said.

A short burst of static broke over the com as Sophie exhaled. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I’m going to check it out. Wait here.”

Overton slipped through the automatic door and stepped out onto the concrete platform. Bringing the scope to his visor, he surveyed the scene, allowing the crosshairs to pop up on his HUD. He crept toward the figures, stepping over the chunks of concrete.

He checked the two corridors for contacts before entering the main lobby. They were empty—nothing but heaps of trash and broken glass. More relics of the past. The vestibule, on the other hand, was filled with signs of recent occupation—and of death. Bodies lay scattered throughout the room. Everywhere his eyes fell, the outlines of armored corpses filled his display. But there was something odd about them—something wasn’t right.

Overton crouched to get a better look. What he saw made him fumble and nearly drop his rifle. The lumps weren’t corpses. They were the black matte armor suits NTC soldiers wore in the Wastelands. The same suit he had on now.

The suits were empty. Where were the bodies?

It was clear there had been a battle. The dark craters from plasma rounds and chunks of broken concrete indicated as much. He scanned the room again, this time not for humans but for Organics.

There was no sign of them. No gooey blood, no dismembered limbs. Nothing.

This was no battle—this was a massacre.

He grabbed one of the soldier’s fallen rifles and stood. “Sophie, get up here.”

Footsteps rang out behind him immediately, followed by a burst of static over the com and then Sophie’s calm voice.

“Where are the bodies?”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering.” Overton paused, scanning the room one more time. His instincts reasserted themselves and he began to move cautiously forward, motioning Sophie toward the edge of the stairs leading into the facility.

“Alexia, you still alive in there?” Overton asked.

“Yes, Sergeant. I’m still 90 percent functional.”