The transit train rattled over the underground tracks, plunging deeper into Sector 4.
Caleb rested the back of his head against the cold glass.
The flashing red and blue lights of the corporate security cruisers were miles behind him now. She was in magnetic binders. Taken by heavy contractors.
The burner chip behind his right ear sat dormant.
No static. No pulsing purple text.
He let out a long, slow breath. The silence was deafening.
She was locked in a corporate holding cell. For the first time since the containment bay, the invisible leash was cut.
He was just a Rank F recruit heading to work.
Whatever had happened in that restaurant, whatever physical anomalies were generating the unnatural heat in his chest and knitting his bruised shoulder together at an impossible speed, he shoved it all deep into a mental lockbox.
He couldn't afford the distraction.
The 0800 mobilization demanded full focus.
The train decelerated, whining against the rails as it entered the subterranean transit hub.
The city above them was already transforming.
Heavy hydraulic gears groaned through the bedrock, vibrating up through the soles of Caleb's boots. Civilian residential blocks were lowering into reinforced silos. Tungsten blast doors were sliding shut across the surface streets.
The scale of the automated defense grid turned the underground platform into a vibrating drum.
Caleb exited the train and joined the flood of dark-gray uniforms pouring down the central corridor.
The primary staging hangar was chaos.
Unofficially dubbed the Cathedral, it spanned the size of an aircraft carrier. Arc welders showered bright sparks from the upper gantries as engineering crews bolted extra armor plating onto the First Division's towering artillery mechs.
The air tasted of ozone, plasma exhaust, and machine grease.
Thousands of recruits and veterans clustered around their designated deployment bays, shouting over the pneumatic hiss of loading drones.
-----
Caleb found the Seventh Division's staging trench.
He strapped himself into a scarred set of surplus armor. The dead weight settled on his shoulders, dragging at his joints with its pathetic 1.2 percent kinetic yield.
He locked his gauntlets, grabbed his standard-issue combat rifle, and slapped the side of his helmet to initialize his HUD.
The military overlay booted up in standard blue.
He checked the top right corner of the visor.
The viewer count did not lock onto a single encrypted user. The public broadcast icon glowed a steady, bright green.
The military servers had placed him back on the open grid.
The viewer count sat at zero.
Caleb racked the bolt of his rifle. A loud clack echoed in his helmet.
The number ticked to twelve.
Then forty.
Then a hundred and fifty.
The public chat log began to scroll in his peripheral vision.
User99: wait is this the scrubber from the urban zone?
RedLine: yeah the pipe guy!
GunnerFan: sync rate 1.2%? how is he even walking in that armor?
TitanSlayer: dude in the surplus gear carried the princess.
Five hundred viewers.
Eight hundred.
The numbers climbed steadily, pulling a tight knot of anticipation in his gut.
The algorithm pushed him into recommended feeds based on his survival in the previous trial. Engagement points equaled credits, and credits kept his family out of the dark.
For the first time, he had an actual audience.
"Mercer."
Caleb turned.
Kikaru Mitsurugi marched through the throng of prepping soldiers. She had traded the academy dress uniform from the restaurant for a clean set of white combat gear.
The disastrous dinner sat between them like a tripwire neither of them touched.
She stopped two feet away, keeping her posture professional.
"Your public feed is active," Kikaru noted. Her gaze tracked the faint blue light of his visor. "The military monitors engagement during these mobilizations. Don't waste the exposure."
"I plan on shooting things," Caleb said. "That usually works."
Hiro and Iharu jogged up behind her.
Hiro practically vibrated with nervous energy, checking his ammunition pouches in a frantic loop. Iharu crossed his arms, his custom red-trimmed armor gleaming under the bright floodlights.
A fresh white bandage stretched across the redhead's broken nose.
"Look who decided to show up," Iharu grunted. "Thought you might have taken a sick day after the urban zone. The Seventh Division gets the worst deployments."
"They didn't give me the option," Caleb said.
"My count is actually climbing," Hiro said, tapping the side of his helmet. A relieved, wide smile broke across his face. "People are linking our squad profiles from the trial. I have three thousand people watching."
Caleb checked his own corner display.
Two thousand, five hundred. Climbing fast.
-----
The Cathedral floodlights slammed off.
A collective hush fell over the thousands of assembled soldiers.
In the center of the hangar, a wide holographic projector flared to life. A three-dimensional topographical map of the city bathed the surrounding divisions in pale blue light.
Captain Ren Kade stepped onto the central command dais, flanked by Vice Captain Iris Calder.
Kade's heavy dress uniform absorbed the blue light. He stepped up to the microphone.
"Listen close." Kade's voice boomed across the silent hangar. "Thirty minutes ago, the offshore perimeter grid went black."
He let the words land.
"The public broadcast networks are telling the civilians this is a standard Category 4 coastal event. They're lying to prevent a stampede."
Kade tapped a command on the console.
The blue hologram shifted.
A wide swath of the coastline lit up in deep red.
"We have a Danger Class-8 Titan making landfall at the commercial docks."
Panic rippled through the ranks. Recruits cursed. Veterans tightened their grips on their weapons.
A Class-8 defied basic physics.
It was a walking extinction event. Millions of tons of armored mass dragged out of the ocean. Flattening city blocks with a single footstep.
"The First and Second Divisions will form the anvil," Kade continued, unfazed by the murmurs. "You hold the defensive line at the sector walls. Heavy artillery and sniper suppression."
His dark eyes pinned the front row.
"You don't let that thing breach the inner civilian bunkers."
Kade's gaze swept over the gray uniforms of the Seventh Division holding the rear of the hangar.
"Seventh Division. Third Division." His voice dropped harder. "You're the hammer."
The hologram zoomed in.
Thousands of smaller red dots swarmed the subterranean grid.
"The Titan's landfall triggered a subterranean stampede. Thousands of Scavenger-class Yoju are burrowing up through the subway lines, fleeing the big bastard."
Kade let his eyes settle on the gray uniforms.
"You drop into the flooded transit tunnels. You fight in the dark. You choke the tunnels with their corpses until the breach is contained."
Vice Captain Iris Calder stepped forward to the edge of the dais.
Her scarred forearms crossed over her chest.
"Check your filters and load your mags," Iris said. "You don't break formation in the dark."
Hiro swallowed hard.
Iharu bared his teeth in a savage grin, slapping the side of his scatter-rifle.
Caleb looked at the blue holographic map.
The huge red blip of the Titan dominated the coastline. Thousands of smaller red dots swarmed the subterranean levels beneath their boots.
The military had a plan. The chain of command was operating exactly as intended.
He glanced at his HUD.
Four thousand viewers.
"See you on the other side," Caleb said to the prodigies.
Turning his back on the First Division staging area, he walked toward the deployment tubes.
The heavy surplus armor dragged at his shoulders. The steady influx of public chat comments scrolling across his visor fueled a new, necessary focus.
The slaughterhouse was open.
And he finally had a crowd.