The Florida sun never knew how to play nice.

Out on the west side of Pensacola, the abandoned parking lot baked under a merciless heat, cracked asphalt radiating blistering waves. The air shimmered, bending the shapes of half-collapsed buildings into wavering mirages. The place reeked—a sick stew of rotting food, burned plastic, moldy garbage, and the salt stink of the Gulf. The sun fused it all into a hot, foul wind that slapped at the skin.

In the middle of that stink, Amo worked.

A hoodie so stained its color was anyone's guess, hood pulled low to hide most of his face. Loose, ripped pants dragged at his ankles. He crouched over a green dumpster, half his body inside, bare hands digging through sludge and scraps with precise, practiced movements. The buzzing flies, the greasy muck—none of it slowed him.

Beside him, a supermarket cart on its last legs held his haul: crushed cans, a few intact bottles, a bundle of cardboard.

His fingers closed on something hard, curved. He fished out a rust-eaten cap, weighed it, sneered. Iron. Worthless. Aluminum paid—five cents a pop, or half a stale loaf from Old Jon.

Sweat dripped from the matted ropes of his hair, sizzling on the pavement. A fight broke out down the lot—two scavengers shoving over a busted fan, curses shredding the hot wind.

Same as always. Heat, stink, despair—and the desperate energy of Florida's forgotten, clawing over scraps.

Amo moved to the next dumpster, eyes scanning, hands steady. Now and then, his gaze drifted past the rusted fence to the glittering Gulf, light scattering on the waves like crushed glass. His eyes held no longing, no bitterness. Just that abyssal calm—silent, unreachable, like the bottom of the sea.

"Yo! Amo!"

Jimmy barreled up, loud as ever. "Fast-Talk" Jimmy—bright, hideous shorts, grimy tank top, faded rock band logo.

"Hit the jackpot, man!" He waved half a soggy pack of cookies, crumbs flying. "East side rich folks threw out a goldmine!"

Amo didn't turn. He pulled a nearly new water bottle, sniffed it, dropped it in the cart.

Jimmy kept yapping, as if silence were fuel.

"…World's falling apart, I swear. Big-Ears John says his radio's nothing but static. But sometimes… you hear things between it. Flight routes cut… or whatever. Creepy as hell, man!"

Amo kept digging, unbothered.

"And get this—Old Jon's bread shrank again. Bastards say supplies are short, shipping's sky-high. Like that's our fault! They sit in AC, we chew sawdust! Damn them!" Jimmy spat, crunching his cookie with loud disgust.

Amo finally stood, nothing more worth taking. He shoved the cart forward, wheels squealing. His eyes flicked up.

The sky was flawless blue, sun burning overhead. Normally there'd be contrails—white lines streaking the air.

Today? Empty. Too empty. Not a single plane, not a whisper of movement.

Jimmy's voice wavered in the hot wind: "…I'm telling you, something's coming. Big. Gives me chills…"

Glass crunched under the cart, shrieking louder than Jimmy.

Something big? Amo only cared about finding more aluminum before dark.

He bent to grab a bottle by the wheel—

Then the voice hit. Jagged as lightning:

[—zzzz… member states… final… warning… zzz… Red Line… zzz… surrender or… consequences… zzz—]

Amo froze, almost imperceptibly. His hand clenched the cart handle until his knuckles blanched.

That voice—mechanical, cold, inhuman. Only a flash, but it dredged up old pain, the ringing in his skull he thought he'd buried.

Jimmy chewed, oblivious.

Amo loosened his grip slowly, straightened. Beneath the hood, his brow furrowed—then smoothed away too fast to be real.

He wiped at phantom sweat with his sleeve, flashing the filthy wrist rig tied to his arm—circuit scraps, frayed wires, a tiny LCD. For a heartbeat, it flickered, faint as a ghost, then went dead again.

Amo scooped up the bottle, tossed it into the cart.

And pushed on.

Not toward the next dumpster.

Instead, he headed for the rocky slope at the lot's edge, where the Gulf gleamed beyond the fence.

Gravel shifted underfoot. The air was still hot, still foul.

But something had changed.

Gravel crunched under Amo's ruined shoes, a low, reluctant groan from the earth itself as he pushed his squealing cart uphill. Step by step, the chaos of the parking lot sank behind him, and the Gulf spread wide ahead—blue, flat, too calm.

Up here the stink of rot thinned, giving way to brine. Jimmy's voice faded into nonsense behind him.

At the crest, Amo stopped. The cart wheezed to silence.

The sea burned in sunlight. A few white boats sat pinned to the horizon, motionless. The sky—wrongly clean. No clouds. No contrails. Just the pitiless sun.

Then the voice came again.

Not broken static this time. Clear. Cold. Merciless.

"Global Joint Emergency Command, to the government of the United States of North America and remaining military forces—"

It wasn't sound but intrusion, slicing straight into thought. Arguments died mid-shout below. Even Jimmy looked up, dumb, though the voice wasn't from above.

"Your existence constitutes an unacceptable threat to civilization. Under final authority of the Extinction Red Line Accord, the following directive is issued."

Amo didn't move. His hood shadowed his face. Only his wrist twitched—the crude band flashing faintly, like dying nerves.

"Failure to surrender unconditionally within thirty minutes will result in strategic cleansing strikes. Initial targets: New York. Washington. Boston. Atlanta…"

Each name was a death sentence for millions.

"…and the entire state of Florida."

"Countdown commencing: 29 minutes 59 seconds… 58… 57…"

Then—silence.

A silence so heavy it smothered wind and waves. The scavengers below stood frozen, faces twisted in incomprehension and the first taste of terror. Jimmy's cookies spilled into the gravel.

Florida, erased.

Amo exhaled, slow and sour. Looked at his filthy hand, then the band on his wrist.

"Tch." A tiny click of disgust.

Interrupting a man's bottle hunt. Damn them.

His finger found a hidden contact, pressed.

No light. No thunder. Just a faint pop inside the band, like a fuse gone.

The tiny LCD coughed a last line of gibberish—

ERR 0xFFFFFFF: Presence_Erase_Fault (Admin_Override)

—then died for good.

And almost instantly—

The National Military Command Center, buried under the Pentagon, froze. Countdown clocks screamed scarlet across every screen. Officers white-faced. Technicians hammering keys in panic.

Then—blue.

Every screen, every feed, every line of code—seized, drowned in a blinding azure. Fingers froze. Gasps filled the bunker.

Each display bore the same message, stark as a tombstone:

[0xFFFFFFFF] Critical Fault: Existence Erasure Protocol - INITIATION FAILED (Higher-priority directive cannot be overridden)

[Core process cannot be terminated. Suggestion: contact your system administrator (if you can still find Them).]

…

Back on the Florida slope—

Amo shook his hand like he'd swatted a fly. Picked up the plastic bottle, emptied the warm dregs, crushed it, tossed it in the cart.

And walked downhill. Slow. As if nothing had happened. As if the end of the world wasn't his business. Just a scavenger, done for the day.

The cart rattled over glass.

The stink and the heat lingered.

But everything had changed.

Minutes later, deep in his pocket, his ancient flip phone buzzed, rattling off-key. The shattered screen glowed with a number no system should allow—encrypted, unstoppable, priority beyond Earth itself.

Amo stopped, flipped it open, held it to his ear.

A voice spilled out, ragged with fear, bunker echo trailing every word:

"In the name of the United States of America… sir, who are you?"

Amo squinted at the wreckage of Florida in the sun. He smacked his lips, tasted rot, and sighed into the receiver.

"Back in the day? Some folks called me the 'Calamity of War.'"

A beat. His eyes flicked to the aluminum caps in his cart. His tone shifted, practical.

"Now? …Tell me—do you buy bottle caps? Aluminum ones. Five cents each?"

The shade beneath the overpass was thin as moss, barely masking the furnace heat. The stink of rot clung to the air, mixing with oil and concrete dust.

Amos pressed a battered flip phone against his filthy ear. The ringtone still seemed to echo in the air like a fever dream. From hundreds of feet underground, a voice—strained, quivering, but trying to sound official—had asked a question that could decide the fate of civilization.

"Who… who are you?"

Amos's gaze drifted from a shiny, crown-shaped bottlecap to some invisible point beyond the crumbling concrete. He smacked his lips as if savoring the grease of a cheap hotdog.

"Back then…" His voice rasped with the grind of disuse, metallic, like steel dragging on steel. "…some fools got noisy. I shut them up. They started calling me the 'Warring Calamity.'"

The words dropped down the encrypted line like ice water. Somewhere in the bunker, classified archives stirred to life—files marked ERROR, MYTH, FORBIDDEN. Redacted fragments spilled onto screens, stained with the stink of fire and blood.

Silence followed. Only ragged breathing betrayed that anyone still listened.

Amos didn't notice. Or didn't care. His hand kept rummaging through his cart, tin cans clinking like coins in a jar.

"Now?" he said into the phone. "Now I'm just trying to get paid. Aluminum cans, five cents each. Or nickels. Nickels would save me a trip to Old Jon's place."

In the war room, men and women who held the levers of nations stared at one another, mute. Generals gaped, technicians blinked at frozen blue screens, and someone whispered the word like a prayer:

"…Nickel?"

The lead voice forced itself steady, though it trembled anyway. "Sir… we can offer any resource. Anything you ask. The United States stands ready—"

"Five cents." Amos cut him off flatly. His irritation was the kind you'd use on a slow clerk at a corner store. "Aluminum, or nickel coins. You get it?"

He picked up a crushed beer can and squeezed it, the aluminum groaning in protest. "These. You wasted my time. Do you know how many bottles I could've cashed by now?"

The line went dead quiet. Nuclear annihilation—measured in missed bottle money.

"…perhaps," the bunker voice tried again, fumbling for logic, "perhaps we could discuss broader cooperation? Maybe you could… help with those cursed blue screens?"

Amos sighed, a sound full of dust and annoyance.

"Trouble. It'll fix itself."

As if on cue, the NMCC screens flickered. Code writhed like dying insects—then vanished. With a snap, maps and satellites and comms all blinked back to life. Only the countdown, crimson and merciless, kept ticking: 26:17… 16… 15.

"See?" Amos muttered, like he'd just smacked the side of a broken radio. "Told you."

There was no relief in the bunker. Just dread. Their most advanced systems had been dismissed like a bad antenna.

"The countdown," a general gasped into the phone, desperation cracking his voice. "Please! Stop it!"

"Oh, that thing?" Amos drawled. "Yeah, I can kill it."

Collective exhalations of hope filled the chamber—until three more words dropped like stones:

"…gonna cost you."

"What?" the general croaked.

"Compensation." Amos's tone hardened with bored righteousness. "You ruined my shift. Mental damages. And fixing your screens? That's labor. Package deal. Ten cans. Fifty cents. Cash or aluminum, your choice. No iron."

In the bunker, the most powerful people in the free world began patting their pockets, searching frantically for nickels, dimes, anything that could be stacked into fifty cents.

And under the bridge, the Warring Calamity leaned against his rickety cart, haggling over pocket change.

Overhead, the doomsday clock ticked on. 25:59.