Jack woke up in a ruined apartment and didn't know what year it was.

That was the first thing he noticed—the way the light came through the broken window, gray and dim, like the sun had forgotten how to shine. The second thing was the taste in his mouth, metallic and bitter, like he'd been licking batteries.

He sat up and looked around. The apartment was a wreck—furniture overturned, walls cracked, the floor covered in dust that wasn't quite dust, more like ground-up everything. He could see the Ring through the window, a vast gray band arcing across the sky, blocking out the sun, blocking out the stars, blocking out everything.

The Dust Ring. That's what they called it. Not a spaceship, not a weapon, just a ring of nuclear dust and pollution that had encircled the Earth after the war. The war that nobody talked about, the war that happened so fast that by the time anyone understood what was happening, it was already over.

His sister Lily was still sleeping in the next room. She was nineteen, sick from radiation exposure, coughing up blood that Jack cleaned up with rags he'd washed so many times they were more thread than cloth.

He needed medicine. He needed food. He needed to do something, anything, that would make the Ring go away.

The map was old, printed on paper that was yellowing at the edges. It showed an abandoned military depot somewhere in the ruins of what used to be Pennsylvania. The depot contained nuclear devices—old, unreliable, but functional. Jack's job, such as it was, was to scavenge them, bring them back, and trade them for medicine.

Administrator Jaw's voice came over the radio every morning at six. It was a crackling, distorted voice, like a man speaking through a wall.

Attention all survivors. The devices are needed for Project Artemis. A plan to disperse the Dust Ring by pushing the Moon into collision course. All available devices must be delivered to the lunar transport facility. This is not a request. This is an order.

Jack didn't believe it. He didn't believe any of it. But he needed the medicine for Lily, and the only people who had medicine were the people who controlled the depots, and the only way to get access to the depots was to follow Jaw's orders.

So he went.

The journey was three weeks. He walked through the ruins of cities that no longer existed on any map, past skeletal buildings that leaned against each other like drunkards, past fields of ash where crops used to grow. He met other survivors—scavengers, like him, trying to keep their families alive in a world that had forgotten them.

One of them was the Girl from Eridani. She was twenty-five, thin and sharp-featured, with eyes that seemed to look through him rather than at him. She carried a crystal pendant that glowed when radiation levels were low, and she used it to navigate the ruined landscape, finding pockets of safety in a world that had none.

Where are you headed? she asked him on the second week.

The depot, Jack said.

She nodded. You won't get the medicine.

Why not?

Because they don't have it. There is no medicine. There hasn't been for years.

Jack stopped walking. What do you mean, there's no medicine?

I mean what I said. The people in the bunkers don't have medicine. They have food, they have water, they have power. But they don't have medicine for radiation sickness. And they're not going to give you any, because they don't want you surviving. Dead scavengers don't compete for resources.

Jack stared at her for a long moment. Then he kept walking.

He reached the depot on the twenty-first day. It was a massive concrete structure, half-buried in ash, its doors blown off their hinges. Inside, he found rows of nuclear devices, old and rusted but still functional. He loaded them onto a cart and began the journey back.

The Girl from Eridani joined him. She said she was going to the lunar transport facility. She said she had something to deliver.

What is it? Jack asked.

She held up the crystal pendant. It floated an inch above her palm, glowing faintly. This, she said. It will show you the truth.

Jack didn't ask what truth. He was tired of asking questions.

They reached the transport facility on the twenty-eighth day. It was a massive structure, part bunker, part launch pad, and it was full of people—scavengers like Jack, carrying carts loaded with nuclear devices. Everyone was there, waiting, hoping, believing that if they just delivered enough devices, someone, somewhere, would give them medicine.

Administrator Jaw's voice came over the radio.

All devices have been received. The launch window is approaching. Prepare for transport to lunar facility.

Transport to the Moon. Jack stared at the announcement, trying to understand what he was hearing. They weren't just collecting the devices on Earth. They were sending people. They were sending scavengers like him to the Moon to maintain the devices.

Why? he asked the Girl from Eridani.

She looked at him with those sharp, seeing eyes. Because they need hands. And scavengers are cheap.

He didn't want to go. He wanted to return to the ruined apartment, find Lily, tell her they were leaving, finding somewhere—anywhere—where the Ring wasn't visible, where the air didn't taste like batteries.

But there was no somewhere. The Ring was everywhere. It encircled the Earth, a gray band of dust and pollution and death, and there was no escaping it.

So he went.

The lunar facility was cold and sterile, a stark contrast to the ruins he'd left behind. He was given a uniform, a bunk, and a job—maintaining the nuclear devices buried in the lunar surface. Five million of them, arranged in a grid pattern, each one buried three thousand meters deep. His job was to make sure they worked, that they were ready, that they were waiting.

He didn't know what they were waiting for.

Through the viewport, he could see the Dust Ring. It was beautiful in a terrible way, a vast gray band arcing across the sky, blocking out the sun, blocking out the stars, blocking out everything. It was humanity's doing, this—humanity's punishment, humanity's self-inflicted wound.

The Girl from Eridani gave him the crystal pendant. It floated an inch above her palm, glowing faintly. Look at it, she said. Look and see.

Jack looked. And in the crystal's distorted light, he saw the truth—the Dust Ring was not a weapon, not an accident, not a tragedy. It was a choice. Humanity had chosen war, and the Dust Ring was the consequence.

He didn't hate them. He didn't have the energy for hate. He was just tired. Tired of scavenging, tired of maintaining devices he didn't understand, tired of writing letters he would never send.

The launch occurred on a day he didn't mark, because all days looked the same under the Dust Ring. The nuclear devices detonated in sequence, pushing the Moon out of its orbit. The Moon shifted, but the Dust Ring did not disperse. It only grew thicker, darker, more impenetrable.

Jack watched from the lunar facility as Earth's surface turned darker. He thought of Lily, lying in the ruined apartment, coughing up blood, waiting for medicine that would never come.

He wrote a letter.

To my sister, if you're still there. I'm sorry. I tried. I don't know if it was enough. I hope you're warm. I hope you're not afraid.

He folded the letter and put it in his helmet.

Two hundred years later, a scavenger in the ruins of a Rust Belt city found the letter, folded in a rusted helmet. The scavenger read it and understood nothing and everything, and for a moment, just a moment, he felt the weight of the Dust Ring pressing down on him like the weight of the sky.