Remnants of the Collapse
The war between the great powers lasted eleven months. It was enough. When the dust settled — and the dust never truly settled — the Mojave became an open graveyard of military ambition. Transport aircraft torn from the sky, their fuselages split open like metal ribcages, cargo spilling across miles of scorched earth.
Russian heavy-lifters. American gunships. Chinese cargo drones the size of buildings. They fell where they were hit, and the desert swallowed them slowly, burying wings in sand and rusting engines to silence. What the war left behind became the only economy that mattered.
Torn Open. Picked Clean.
The massive transport aircraft are the richest finds — their cargo holds still contain military trucks, crated supplies, and sealed containers of rations and medical gear. The fuselages rip open over time, the desert heat warping metal until the seams give way, revealing everything inside like a cracked-open vault.
Survival is Inventory.
Every wreck site is a gamble. Some have been stripped by previous wanderers, nothing left but wire and scorched aluminum. Others are untouched — too far from water, too deep in the radiation zones, or guarded by machines that still follow their last orders.
Still Running. Barely.
Military trucks built to survive nuclear winter sometimes do exactly that. She has learned to coax diesel engines back to life with sand-filtered fuel and salvaged batteries. A working truck means distance. Distance means options. Options mean another week alive.
It Takes Everything Back.
The Mojave doesn't care who won the war. Sand buries insignias and flags alike. In fifty years, the wreckage will be dunes. In a hundred, it will be geology. She takes what she can before the desert reclaims it all.