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The night was thick with the scent of scorched earth and the faint, sterile ozone of energy weapons recently discharged. Roger Maxson stood at the edge of an abandoned Charleston street, the crumbled skyline lit only by the eerie blue glow of malfunctioning streetlamps. His patrol had ended hours ago, but sleep was a luxury he hadn’t afforded himself in days.

That’s when he saw them— shadows slipping silently from the ruins, almost invisible except for the occasional shimmer of a weapon’s surface catching light. Cloaked figures, moving with the precision and elegance of trained operatives. Not Brotherhood, not even Enclave. Something different.

Maxson narrowed his eyes, hand resting lightly on the grip of his holstered pistol. Curiosity burned in his chest. The rumors he’d dismissed — about a secret order operating independently in Appalachia — flickered to life. The Order of Mysteries.

Among them, one figure stood apart. Taller, her bearing straighter, her mask more intricately marked than the others. As if sensing his gaze, she paused and looked directly toward him, though he was cloaked in shadow. It wasn’t a threat — it was… acknowledgment.

For a breathless moment, Maxson didn’t move. Neither did she.

The leader of the Order. The daughter of the Rivers woman he’d heard whispers about. Rivers. That name was carved deep into the few files they’d salvaged from the Old World — a name tied to covert resistance, black-ops brilliance, and unsolved mysteries. And now her daughter led this new incarnation, right under his nose.

The cloaked leader gave the smallest, almost imperceptible tilt of her head — a gesture that felt less like a warning, and more like an invitation. Then she disappeared into the rubble, her operatives vanishing with her like ghosts.

Maxson exhaled, long and low. His pulse hammered in his ears.

He could have followed. He should have. Yet something told him — instinct honed from years of command — that this wasn’t a moment to chase. It was a message. A line drawn between them.

And perhaps, if he was wise, an opportunity.

That night, long after the city fell silent again, Roger Maxson sat awake at his desk, scribbling in his worn field journal. Only one thought replayed over and over in his mind:

«Who are you really, Rivers? And what do you want from this broken world ? »