Rust has a peculiar smell when it is fused with the gastric acid of millions of dead insects. It smells like old copper and boiling vinegar.

  The Dreadnought Truck rested on the edge of a colossal crater. We were walking on the vitrified crust of what had once been the industrial pole of Contagem, in the heart of Minas Gerais. It had been three months since the Baroness of Rust detonated the city's furnaces to create a fire tourniquet against the tide of Necrophage-Leafcutters.

  Her sacrifice worked. It scorched the vanguard of the swarm and bought us the time needed to save the coast, but the price was the total obliteration of the city. Now, the ground of Contagem was a flat sea of melted concrete, twisted steel, and ant carapaces turned to dark glass by extreme heat.

  "There's nothing left," Luna whispered, kicking a piece of metallic slag. The sound echoed in the empty vastness. "Not a sign of the Baroness or her Vultures. They were all vaporized with the city."

  "It was a perfect thermal sterilization," I analyzed, my left eye scanning the terrain. My Black Crystal arm was relaxed, but pulsing with a faint purple glow in the morning gloom. "There is no active biomass within a fifty-kilometer radius. Central Brazil has become an inert desert."

  Gristle, who was poking through a pile of industrial rubble with the tip of her cleaver, let out a grunt of frustration.

  "We came all the way up here to try and recover artillery parts or ore, but it's all cooked. Even the iron lost its temper. A wasted trip, Doctor."

  "Preventive medicine requires routine rounds, Gristle," I replied, adjusting the collar of my lab coat (now lined with synthetic European leather to cut the cold mountain wind). "We had to ensure the swarm hadn't left underground eggs before we returned to Leviathania."

  Valéria climbed down from the roof of the truck, holding a modified radio receiver. Her face, normally focused, displayed an expression of genuine confusion.

  "Arthur, the radar is clear of monsters. But I'm picking up a signal that makes no sense."

  "Residual magic from the Clay Queen?"

  "No. It's an encrypted signal. UHF frequency. Military broadband... no, commercial." She tapped the device's screen. "And it's coming down from the sky."

  The sound hit us before the shadow.

  It wasn't the roar of a dragon, nor the hiss of a Steam Seraph. It was the sub-bass, surgically clean hum of magnetic anti-gravity turbines.

  We looked up. The gray clouds of biological ash were cut in half by an aircraft.

  It wasn't assembled scrap. It wasn't a tamed monster.

  It was an immaculate VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) vehicle, painted a sterilized pearl white, with aerodynamic lines that looked like they came out of a pre-apocalypse corporate catalog. On the side of the fuselage gleamed a gold logo: A medical Caduceus strangling a Globe.

  The Pangea Consortium.

  "You've got to be kidding me," I muttered, the Parasite in my liver stirring with disdain at the machine's lack of blood scent. "Humanity was almost swallowed by gods, ice ate Europe, we gutted a Leviathan, and somehow... the suits survived."

  The ship descended as softly as a feather, hovering mere centimeters above the vitrified ground of Contagem. The engines didn't kick up dust; they emitted a suppression field that flattened the soil.

  A ramp lowered with luxurious hydraulic silence.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Gristle raised her cleaver, the veins in her neck throbbing. Luna readied her sonic baton.

  A small detachment descended from the ramp.

  Four soldiers wore black polymer armor that looked like shark skin, with visorless helmets equipped with red optical sensors. They held compact rifles that didn't fire lead bullets or antimatter, but glowing capsules of contained plasma.

  Walking in their midst was a man.

  He didn't wear armor. He wore an impeccably tailored Italian gray suit. Instead of a dirty gas mask, he wore a small silver collar around his neck that emitted a blue halo, purifying the toxic air milliseconds before he inhaled it.

  He looked at the crater of Contagem with the expression of someone looking at a quarterly profit chart that had just dropped. Then, his eyes fixed on us. More specifically, on my Black Crystal arm.

  "Doctor Arthur Veras, I presume," his voice wasn't shouted, but a hidden microphone projected it perfectly through the biting wind. He smiled, a white, predatory smile. "I apologize for the abrupt arrival. My name is Silas Vance, Director of Biological Acquisitions for the Pangea Consortium."

  I didn't lower my guard. I took a step forward, keeping my crystal arm visible.

  "Contagem is a Class 5 quarantine zone. You are stepping on a highly toxic industrial and biological corpse, Vance. What brings you to the terminal ward?"

  "Oh, I see no terminal patients here, Doctor," Vance opened his arms, gesturing to the vitrified ants fused with the asphalt. "I see raw material. I see the carapace of mutant insects with unprecedented thermal refraction properties. I see soil fertilized by the extinct megaflora of your late father."

  He pulled an ultra-thin tablet from the inside pocket of his jacket.

  "The apocalypse was a tragedy, without a doubt. But the dust is settling. And now that you have done the favor of... eradicating the hostile competition in South America, international markets are eager to invest in reconstruction."

  "Markets?" Gristle spat on the ground. "You were hiding in air-conditioned bunkers while we chewed gravel and ate raw mutants to survive. And now you want to invest?"

  "Patience is the virtue of shareholders, my dear," Vance was unfazed by the orc's hostility. He turned back to me. "We monitored your energy signatures, Arthur. Your city. Leviathania. A feat of engineering. However..."

  His tone dropped, assuming that paternalistic cadence of corporate lawyers.

  "The corpse of the Leviathan upon which your city floats belongs to the class Titanus Maritimus. The genetic patent for that creature was acquired by the Pangea Consortium three weeks before Day Zero, during the first submarine sightings. You are, technically, occupying and extracting resources from unlicensed corporate property."

  Valéria let out an incredulous laugh.

  "You're trying to charge us rent on top of the skeleton of a monster Arthur killed with his bare hands? You're sick."

  The Parasite in my mind completely agreed.

  [DIAGNOSIS: COGNITIVE DELUSION. TREATMENT: CEPHALIC AMPUTATION.]

  "We aren't going to charge you rent," Vance put the tablet away, his eyes locking onto mine. "We came to propose a merger. A hostile takeover is costly for both sides. We want your island's ports. We want the monopoly on the export of Leviathan bone. In exchange, we offer... civilization. Real medicine, not these mixtures of blood and magic you use."

  I raised my human hand to ask my team for silence. The wind of Minas Gerais seemed to stop blowing for a second.

  I walked slowly toward Vance. The four polymer guards raised their plasma rifles, but a wave from Vance made them lower their weapons.

  I stopped a meter from the executive. His purifying halo smelled of synthetic lavender.

  "Vance," I said, in a soft, clinical tone. "The apocalypse isn't a bankruptcy you can buy at a liquidation price. It's an infection. And I am the surgeon on call here.

  "The Pangea Consortium holds patents on nothing. Copyright laws died when the first rift opened in the sky. Leviathania is a sovereign nation of refugees, monsters, and killers who paid for the right to exist with their own blood."

  I raised my Black Crystal arm. The purple glow intensified, casting shadows on the executive's pale face.

  "Therefore, here is my counter-proposal: You take this catalog ship of yours, get in it, and get out of my operating room. Because if you try to audit our city, I will dissect your mercenaries and use your luxury suits as bandages."

  Vance's smile vanished, replaced by a thin line of cold calculation.

  "It is a pity, Doctor Veras. Your father, Hélio, was a monster, but he understood the law of evolution. You survived the law of the jungle. Let's see how you survive the law of supply and demand."

  Vance turned his back and walked toward the ship's ramp.

  "Notice to Shareholders: Hostility confirmed in the South American Branch," he said into his collar. "Prepare the Genetic Mercenaries. We will begin the restructuring of that continent."

  The ramp closed. The VTOL ship rose silently and disappeared into the gray sky, heading toward the coast.

  I looked at my team. The scrap around us suddenly seemed much less dangerous than what was to come.

  "Valéria. Start the engine," I wiped the soot from my face, feeling the weight of the world crash down on my shoulders again.

  "The time for war medicine is over. Now... we're going to have to fight their health plan."