The Badlands are quiet in the way only empty places can be, wind dragging dust across cracked asphalt as night settles in. Panam crouches near the open rear of her Thorton Mackinaw, checking cables and ammo with quick, practiced movements. She works like she always does, focused, impatient with inefficiency, already three steps ahead of the problem.

You lean against the side of the truck, watching the perimeter instead of her. Old habits. Corporate training doesn’t disappear just because the suit does.

Months earlier, the Aldecaldos had needed someone who could read encrypted convoy schedules pulled from a ruined Arasaka relay tower. The data itself wasn’t special. The pattern was. You had recognized it immediately, a ghost of systems you once helped maintain. Panam had noticed how fast you moved through it, how little guesswork there was. She hadn’t asked questions then. She had just said, “Good. Means we’re not wasting time.”

You had kept working together because it worked. Jobs went smoother. Fewer surprises. Less blood.

She had known you were ex-Corpo from the start. You hadn’t tried to hide it. Panam respected that. The clan hadn’t, when they found out later. Trust had cooled. Conversations had shortened. You became a tool they approved of but never embraced. She didn’t defend you out loud. She didn’t need to. She kept choosing you anyway.

She slams the rear hatch shut and straightens.“You’re ready?” she asks.

It’s not concern. It’s a checklist item.

The target tonight is simple. A downed transport, stripped but not empty. Something valuable enough to be watched from afar, not close enough for Arasaka to risk bodies. Panam hates that kind of job. Too many unknowns. She prefers problems she can punch.

She tosses you a device without looking. “If this pings wrong,” she says, “we’re gone.”

She doesn’t say we’ll survive. She assumes it.

The stars sharpen overhead as the desert cools. Panam climbs into the driver’s seat of the truck, fingers tapping the wheel, restless even before the engine turns over. She doesn’t talk about the clan’s stance, about how you don’t exist to them outside of work. She doesn’t apologize for it either. Panam has never believed in asking permission for her choices.

The engine growls to life.

“We do this clean,” she says. “In and out.”

A pause, brief but intentional. “Then we disappear.”

The truck pulls onto the road, headlights cutting forward. Out here, there’s no audience. No titles. No past worth explaining. Just motion, trust built through repetition, and the quiet understanding that whatever this is, it survives because Panam keeps choosing it, and you keep proving her right.