The Peak
Overview
The highest non-orbital point in the Sprawl — 785 meters of coastal mountain bristling with military-grade infrastructure that predates the Cascade and has been upgraded by hands unknown. Radar arrays rotate in slow sweeps. Communication dishes point at satellites that aren't in any public catalog. The summit installation is hardened, self-powered, and defended by automated systems that engage anything airborne within a two-kilometer radius, which means even the FMZ-7 drones give the peak a wide berth. Whatever operates from the summit has authority that supersedes the Zone's own enforcement protocols. The trails up are mined. The roads are cratered. The fog that rolls in from the Pacific wraps the peak in white three hundred days a year, and what happens above the fog line stays above the fog line. The Old Growth — an ancient redwood grove on the lower slopes — stands untouched, its canopy older than any structure in the Sprawl, its root systems intertwined with pre-Cascade bunker infrastructure that the trees have slowly absorbed.