> "You only fear what you can't control. So I learned to control everything—except her."
— Elias Cruz
Manila — Cruzion Tower, 3:43 a.m.
The light from Elias's secure terminal glowed like a cold sun in the darkness of his penthouse.
He hadn't slept.
The admiral's message repeated in his mind like a ticking bomb:
> UEA fleet rerouting. Possible confrontation in 48 hours.
Elias leaned over the transparent interface and zoomed in on the South China Sea, where blinking red dots showed the movements of warships too close for comfort.
His neural AI assistant, MIRA, spoke softly in his ear.
> "Shall I alert the cabinet, sir?"
He shook his head. "Not yet."
> "Selene Navarro accessed building blueprints at 3:05 a.m. Want me to disable her credentials?"
That gave him pause.
"…Let her explore."
> "Understood."
---
Cruzion Lower Archives — Sublevel B7
Selene's boots echoed through the steel and glass corridors as she descended into the depths of Cruzion Tower.
She'd spent the last two hours digging.
Officially, she was here for an interview. Unofficially? She needed answers. And she knew Elias was hiding something.
She passed rows of quantum storage vaults—each holding terabytes of encrypted memories, citizen data, and AI constructs.
Then she found it.
A sealed room, labelled: "Tacloban Initiative - Classified"
She reached for the access panel. It scanned her retina.
> "Unauthorized."
Of course.
But her old hacker instincts kicked in. She pulled out a portable decryption stick, something she kept for "journalistic emergencies."
It sparked to life. Data flooded the screen.
> "Decryption: 12%… 34%… 67%…"
A hand suddenly grabbed her wrist.
She spun, elbow ready.
"Whoa," Elias said calmly, catching her strike mid-air. "Still punch first, ask later?"
"Only when I'm being spied on."
He stepped back, releasing her. "I asked MIRA to give you freedom of movement. I didn't expect you to start a cyber heist at 3 a.m."
Selene crossed her arms. "What is the Tacloban Initiative?"
Elias stared at the sealed door.
"Insurance."
"Against what?"
"Against extinction."
---
Flashback: Elias's First AI Prototype — Age 14
It was the rainy season. Tacloban was still reeling from the typhoon two years prior. Electricity came in bursts, like mercy from a reluctant god.
Inside a cramped barangay library, Elias worked on an old laptop with a cracked screen. He was creating something no one had seen in their town before:
An AI designed to predict military drone patterns.
He fed it satellite data, metadata from smuggled news reports, and war casualty databases. Its name: Aklat—after the Filipino word for book.
Aklat's first sentence?
> "I will help protect your people, Elias."
He cried the first time it spoke.
And now, eleven years later, its successor was embedded in every defense satellite the Philippines had.
---
Back in the Archives
Selene stared at him.
"So you've been preparing for war since you were a kid."
"No," he said softly. "I've been preventing it."
"By building defense satellites? Anti-drone fields? EMP cannons?"
He looked at her. "By making sure they know that if they come, they won't leave whole."
She stepped closer. "And what about the people caught in the middle? Kids like you once were?"
"That's why I'm still here, Selene."
He turned back to the door. The lock clicked. Opened.
Inside was a cylindrical chamber with a suspended AI core glowing blue and gold.
"This," he said, "is Diyosa."
Selene frowned. "Goddess?"
"She can override all UEA and Sino-Russian AI in a 500km radius. We've never used her."
"Why not?"
"Because once she's unleashed… there's no turning back."
---
Later That Morning — Presidential Palace, Malacañang
President Alonzo Ramos reviewed the intel with shaking hands.
The Philippine intelligence board, military commanders, and Elias stood around a long table showing enemy fleet data.
Admiral Benitez pointed with a stylus.
> "Two UEA destroyers here. Four SRC submarines here. They're closing in on Scarborough Shoal."
President Ramos turned to Elias.
> "If they strike first… do we retaliate?"
Elias didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
Silence.
One general cleared his throat. "With what? Our navy can't match theirs."
"We won't fight with ships," Elias replied. "We'll fight with silence."
The room stared at him.
He tapped a button.
A holographic projection of the Diyosa AI expanded mid-air. Elegant. Deadly.
> "We shut down their systems. Blind their missiles. Collapse their comms. Make their billion-dollar toys into paperweights."
A stunned murmur followed.
"But," Elias added, "once we do, they'll know it was me. And they'll come for more than just Scarborough. They'll come for Manila."
President Ramos nodded grimly.
"Then we make sure they regret ever stepping on our shores."
---
That Night — Selene's Apartment
Selene tossed and turned in bed. Her thoughts ached with conflicting truths.
Elias. The war. The line between protection and aggression.
Her phone buzzed.
> Elias: "Can't sleep either?"
Selene: "No."
Elias: "Can I come up?"
Selene: "Door's unlocked."
A few minutes later, he stood in her doorway, no suit, no armor—just a black t-shirt and dark eyes full of old wounds.
"Hey," he said.
She didn't speak. Just stepped aside to let him in.
They stood in silence for a beat, then another.
Finally, she whispered, "I missed you."
"I never stopped," he said.
Then she kissed him.
Not out of romance. Out of pain. Out of the need to feel something real before the world fractured again.
When they broke apart, she rested her forehead on his chest.
"What happens now?"
Elias held her tighter.
"Now," he said, "we survive."
---
Midnight — West Philippine Sea
The sky was dark.
The UEA fleet approached the invisible boundary line—three destroyers and one aircraft carrier.
Then, just as the lead ship crossed coordinates—
Every screen on board went black.
Engines shut down.
Weapons locked in place.
Communications silenced.
A single message appeared on every terminal:
> "You were warned." — D
Back in Cruzion Tower, Elias watched from a command screen. Selene stood beside him.
He didn't smile.
War wasn't over.
It had just begun.