Dust, earth and metal rose when her staff struck the ground, but while the natural elements succumbed to gravity's whims, the droids hung in the air around her like flies caught in an unseen cobweb. Isa's irritating voice jolted her awake from her reminiscence.

The fool was asking about her favorite player was –again. Zeina had known they’d drag her into their debate sooner or later. She’d wished it was never.

“Santi's my best player,” she answered, putting much emphasis on the pronoun. “but Ibe gets you stats everyone knows that.”

“Heard that? Everyone!” Adame echoed. “Everyone except you. Daft and dense as you are.”

Luckily that was all they needed from her. She spotted something queer behind Isa as she turned away. Not really queer per se, I mean it wouldn’t be the first horned cadaver she saw sticking out of a sandbank. The strangeness lay in the memories such a common sight invoked in her.

Dead Things in the Sands. Corpses in the Dunes. The last words her uncle had said before she left his office. The Axumite army had lost not just control but full contact with a certain oasis town deep in the desert’s interior and that was the last transmission they’d received from Tamsaret. His advisors had decided it was necromancy, how they came to that conclusion Zeina would never know –or care. It was most likely a dramatic call for help during a slaughter but since such morbid magic had been suspected this would have to be classified a shadow mission and excluded from the briefings. Even the bravest of soldiers would lose sleep over rumors of the undead. The town was the final stop before she’d report back to base for reassignment.

Miles later Zeina felt a sudden nudge in her being. The type of nudge that meant her powers had been awoken. A drone approximately 6 miles away was feeding her reports. She'd had these powers for close to 4 years but she’d never quite gotten used to receiving notifications in her head.

Command had recently ordered limited satellite messaging in an attempt to prevent any interceptions and forcing the entire regiment to rely on either face-to-face or drone-to-face methods.

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Zeina understood how but not why she could do this. Technomancy was relatively new form of magic, I mean technically she was older than it, the first report of scientific Arcanum had been reported barely two decades ago. Zeina like most Technomancers knew and felt the power was old. Archaic even. The Cairo Incident was merely its first recorded manifestation.

The bionic implant in her skull somehow translated the inputs from Binary to Human language. No matter how many she performed this task she would always find it fascinating. Technomancy: The world of unknown knowns. A book she’d seen online recently. She would had to buy it even though it cost the same price as healthy calf.

“Drones are saying the road’s clear.” Zeina announced.

“We’re not reaching Tin Zao before night.” Isa declared under a reddening sky. The boy was worryingly addicted to stating the obvious.

“Closest oasis town is 3 miles out, let’s relax there. You know the night cold has killed more soldiers than her majesty over there." He laughed like he just said the finest joke of all time "I haven’t been to -" He paused and squinted at his bike’s holoscreen.

“…Tavenda but Saharan law states every town is required to have cold rooms, warm food and even warmer legs.” He was mimicking a general now. A distasteful joke but a comedic performance overall Zeina had give honor where it as due Now that was comedic

The sky was painted with uneven stripes of black blue and orange when they got their first glimpse of the much welcomed blot of green staining the golden landscape.

Upon arrival Isa likened a bloated, twisted and leafless tree to one of his ex-girlfriends. He was 19 and given the opportunity he’d sexualize the word "hard drive". He was already four times guilty of that crime

Scanted streets soon flooded with onlookers as their hovers approached. The children reached them first. Pups of all sizes came scampering out of every alley in sight, grown folk trailing behind them.

Even though she’d come to find the wide eyes and smiles from the little girls of each village they visited appeasing, she’d didn’t think could last another day the this, posing for selfies, arguing about athletes thousands of miles away, going to sleep with no vanquished foes. She had 2 weeks of this left