Day 437. 06:00 hours.
Olympus.
Level 2.
The Command Deck.
The map had not slept, and neither had Mei.
She sat at her station with Chocho curled in her lap, her crimson hair pulled back, her violet-blue eyes tracking the feeds that scrolled across the twelve monitors in cascading lines of thermal data.
The fox dozed against her thigh, her small white ears twitching at every chirp of the console.
Mei had been on the deck since 04:00, two hours before her shift, because the numbers had not stopped climbing and she could not sleep while they climbed.
'I had the full picture by 23:00 yesterday — and it was already worse than the picture.' Mei catalogued, her fingers pausing on the keyboard as she watched a new cluster of thermal blooms erupt across the SCTEX corridor, each one a detonation, each detonation a building or a truck or a cluster of bodies that had been alive an hour ago.
She had slept for two hours on the bench behind her station with Chocho curled against her ribs, and in those two hours the engagement count had jumped by forty-three, the casualty estimate had climbed by two thousand, and she had woken to a map that was worse than the one she had closed her eyes to.
'He kissed me yesterday — on impulse — and I cannot think about what it meant while the map is burning.' Mei filed, her fingers resuming their movement on the keyboard, the analyst pushing the thought under later because the map was now and the map was always now.
The map rotated slowly on the main screen, the Philippine archipelago rendered in the false-color palette of ARTEMIS thermal imaging.
The cold blue of frozen ground was gone, buried under the orange and red of ordnance, the white of snow erased by the heat signatures of war.
The pattern that had been accelerating yesterday had not slowed overnight.
It had worsened.
Jae-min walked onto the Command Deck at six, his dark eyes sweeping the room the way they swept every room — cataloging Mei at her station, the map on the screen, the coffee cooling on the console beside her elbow, Chocho's ears twitching.
He crossed to her station and stood behind her chair, his hand finding the back of it, his dark eyes rising to the map.
"Report." Jae-min commanded, his voice low with the calm tactical edge that never broke.
"Eight hundred and forty-seven active engagements as of 05:58, up from seven hundred and twelve at 11:00 yesterday." Mei reported, her fingers pulling up the updated overlay. "The escalation did not slow overnight — it accelerated."
'One hundred and thirty-five new engagements in eighteen hours — the doubling rate compressed.' Mei filed, her jaw tightening as the numbers aligned themselves behind her eyes.
"Subic-Pampanga." Jae-min pressed, his dark eyes finding the corridor on the map, the fifty-kilometer stretch of SCTEX that glowed solid red.
"Two hundred and ninety-one engagements in the corridor alone, up from two hundred and seventeen yesterday." Mei zoomed in, the screen filling with the dense thermal bloom of the Subic-Clark front. "Navarro pushed east overnight, Gutierrez pushed west, Clark is still holding but the perimeter contracted. The Air Force faction lost two warehouses on the eastern approach."
The map pulsed with new data, a fresh cluster of detonations blooming along the highway near Mabalacat, and Mei watched the thermal count climb in real time, each bloom a weapon discharge, each discharge a death.
"Casualties." Jae-min pressed.
"Updated estimate: nineteen thousand dead since 06:00 yesterday." Mei's voice did not waver, but her fingers stilled on the keyboard. "Seven thousand overnight. The Subic-Pampanga corridor accounts for six thousand of the overnight deaths — mostly civilians, mostly women and children. The factions are shelling the towns."
Jae-min's hand tightened on the back of her chair, his knuckles whitening, and the captain in him filed the number while the father in him pressed against the teeth.
Nineteen thousand.
Mostly women and children.
In twenty-four hours.
'This is what famine looks like when it learns to use artillery.' Jae-min filed, the regressor stirring beneath the captain.
The Command Deck door opened, and Alessia walked in with Jennifer beside her, both women still in their sleeping clothes.
Jennifer's icy-blue hair hung loose around her shoulders, her blue eyes puffy from crying the night before, her hand resting on her belly where the child was three weeks along and already making its mother sick.
Alessia guided her to the bench by the long window, her black eyes scanning the map, her Life Sense reaching automatically for the five signatures she carried in her chest.
The Life Sense hummed as it confirmed each one: Jin, Jennifer's, Ji-yoo's, Yue's, Gabriel's — all stable, all present.
"Five signatures, all stable." Alessia murmured to Jae-min as she passed his chair, her hand brushing his shoulder. "Jin kicked three times overnight. Jennifer slept. Yue and Gabriel are in the simulator early."
Jae-min's hand found Alessia's on his shoulder, his thumb pressing her knuckles once in silent acknowledgment, and then he released her and turned back to the map.
Elaine arrived next, her black hair pulled back, her black eyes already sharp despite the early hour, and she took her position at the long window with her arms folded and her gaze on the screen.
She had been the one to profile Navarro and Gutierrez overnight, and the folder was on the console beside Mei's station — a thin manila envelope containing everything the spy had compiled on two men who were burning Central Luzon over rice and fuel.
"Navarro and Gutierrez." Elaine opened, her voice flat, her black eyes on Jae-min. "I have the profiles."
"Go." Jae-min commanded, settling into his chair.
"Ricardo Navarro, fifty-three, Philippine Naval Academy class of '14, retired three years before the freeze with full honors, no disciplinary record." Elaine reported, her voice clipped and precise. "He took command of the Subic Freeport security force on Day 6. The Freeport administration collapsed on Day 19, and Navarro absorbed the remaining security personnel, the port authority, and the customs enforcement units into a single command structure. By Day 40, he controlled the entire Freeport zone and the adjacent Olongapo municipality."
'He built his faction the way a naval officer builds a task force — chain of command, logistics, disciplined escalation.' Elaine filed, her threat-detector brain mapping the man's pattern.
"He has a wife and two adult children in Subic." Elaine continued, her black eyes on Jae-min. "The son is ex-Navy, serves as his second. The daughter is a nurse, runs the field hospital. The faction is familial at the core, military in structure, disciplined in execution. Navarro is not a warlord — he is a commander who ran out of government and decided to become one."
"Gutierrez." Jae-min pressed.
"Antonio Gutierrez, forty-eight, municipal mayor of a mid-size Pampanga town, elected three times, populist base." Elaine shifted her weight against the window frame. "He took command of the municipal police on Day 8, the barangay captains on Day 10, and by Day 30 he had consolidated the entire rice belt from San Fernando to Magalang. He controls the granaries, the milling facilities, and the pre-freeze harvest stockpile. Nine thousand armed — mostly ex-police, neighborhood watch, civilian volunteers with hunting rifles."
"His family." Jae-min pressed.
"Wife and one daughter, both civilian, both in the granary compound." Elaine confirmed. "Gutierrez is not military. He is a politician who discovered that rice is more powerful than votes. His faction is patronage-based, loyal to the man who feeds them, motivated by hunger. He is not disciplined — he is desperate, and desperate men with artillery shell towns."
The Command Deck was quiet for a moment, the map pulsing on the screen, and Jae-min's dark eyes moved from Elaine to the corridor where the thermal blooms continued to multiply along the SCTEX.
"Clark." Jae-min pressed, his dark eyes finding the midpoint on the map.
"Colonel Reyes Tan, forty-four, Philippine Air Force, fighter pilot, retired from active duty two years before the freeze, recalled to Clark on Day 4 to secure the airfield." Elaine reported. "He commands approximately one thousand five hundred, all ex-Air Force. He holds the airfield, the eastern warehouses, and the runway. He is surrounded — Navarro presses from the west, Gutierrez presses from the east. Tan holds because the airfield is the only piece of high ground in the corridor, and because his people are the only ones with genuine military training."
"Can Tan hold?" Jae-min questioned, his dark eyes on the spy.
"Seventy-two hours, maybe less." Elaine measured, her black eyes flat. "His ammunition is finite, his perimeter is contracting. Navarro and Gutierrez are not coordinating, but they are both pressing Tan, and Tan cannot hold two fronts indefinitely. When Clark falls, the corridor becomes a single front, and Subic and Pampanga go direct."
'And when they go direct, the casualties double.' Elaine filed, her jaw tightening.
The Command Deck door opened again, and Mark Jordan walked in with Yi Chen behind him.
The professor's amber eyes were on the map, the federation defector's golden eyes on the corridor, and both men took positions at the console without a word.
Gabby arrived next, her black hair tied back, her eyes still carrying the dimness of a woman who had been grounded and who was training a boy named Renz in the simulator.
She took her seat beside Mark Jordan with her hands folded in her lap.
"Simulator status." Jae-min commanded, his dark eyes finding Gabby.
"Renz pushed 68 meters per second yesterday, wind cage at 3.4 meters radius." Gabby reported, her voice small but steady, the brightness still finding its way through the grounding. "He flies in two days, maybe less. Lia is ahead of him — Professor Shang had her cutting space at 1.2 meters by end of day."
'Two days — two days and I'm not useless.' Gabby filed, her eyes dropping to her hands.
Jae-min's dark eyes swept the deck, the crew assembling, the map burning, and he let the silence hold for a moment before he spoke.
"ARTEMIS wide — all regions, full spectrum." Jae-min commanded. "Show me the country."
Mei pulled back the zoom, the map expanding to show the full archipelago, and the country was on fire.
Every region glowed with thermal signatures, the orange and red of ordnance blooming across Luzon, the Visayas, Mindanao, and the outlying islands.
"Metro Manila — forty-one engagements yesterday, fifty-three as of 06:00." Mei reported, her fingers highlighting the capital region. "Multiple factions. The largest is a religious group calling itself the Children of the Frost, approximately four…thousand armed, holding the Quezon City government warehouses." Mei reported, her fingers highlighting the capital region. "They are fighting a coalition of former government forces and criminal syndicates for control of the port area. The port is burning."
'Religious fanatics with government food.' Mei filed, her fingers moving to the next region.
"Visayas — twenty-eight yesterday, thirty-four as of 06:00." Mei continued, the map shifting. "Cebu holds the port, Iloilo holds the Panay rice. Cebu attempted an amphibious landing on the northern Panay coast at 03:00. The landing was repelled, but Cebu lost two hundred in the attempt. Iloilo lost eighty in the shore bombardment."
"Mindanao — thirty-three yesterday, thirty-eight as of 06:00." Mei moved to the south. "Davao, Cagayan de Oro, and Zamboanga are in a three-way stalemate. No territory changed hands overnight, but Davao shelled the Cagayan de Oro port at 04:00. The port is damaged but operational."
"Northern Luzon — twenty-four yesterday, twenty-nine as of 06:00." Mei moved north. "Ilocos versus Cagayan Valley. The Cagayan faction attempted to push through Dalton Pass overnight. The pass is held by Ilocos. The push failed. Three hundred dead on the Cagayan side, eighty on the Ilocos side. The pass is blocked with wreckage."
"Bicol — nineteen yesterday, twenty-two as of 06:00. Legazpi versus Naga, stalemate." Mei moved to the southeast. "The Mayon Volcano route is the front line. Neither faction has the firepower to push through."
"CALABARZON — thirty-seven yesterday, forty-one as of 06:00." Mei moved to the region south of Manila. "Multiple factions. The port of Batangas changed hands twice overnight. The current holder is a coalition of ex-coast guard and fishing cooperative members, approximately one thousand eight hundred armed. They are surrounded."
Jae-min's dark eyes moved across the map, region by region, the numbers compiling in his mind. Eight hundred and forty-seven engagements.
Nineteen thousand dead.
And the biggest concentration was still the Subic-Pampanga corridor — two hundred and ninety-one engagements in a fifty-kilometer stretch of highway, six thousand dead overnight, mostly women and children.
"Pampanga." Jae-min commanded, his voice dropping lower. "Show me Pampanga."
Mei zoomed in, the map filling with the Subic-Clark corridor, and the thermal signatures were so dense that the screen was almost solid red.
The SCTEX ran from west to east, a fifty-kilometer line of fire connecting Subic Bay to Clark Airfield, and along that line, three factions were killing each other over fuel and rice.
"The overnight push." Mei narrated, her fingers tracing the movement on the map. "Navarro pushed east along the SCTEX at 22:00, three columns of technicals with mounted fifty-cal, supported by two mortars. He reached the Mabalacat interchange by 01:00 and engaged Gutierrez's eastern perimeter. Gutierrez repelled the push with seventy-five millimeter artillery, likely from the ex-AFP armory at Camp Olivas. Navarro lost eleven technicals and approximately two hundred men."
"Gutierrez counterattacked at 03:00." Mei continued, the map showing the western push. "Two columns of infantry with mortar support, pushing west along the SCTEX toward the Clark eastern approach. The counterattack reached the Angeles interchange before Tan's Air Force faction engaged from the airfield perimeter. Gutierrez lost approximately three hundred men and fell back to the Mabalacat line."
"Civilians." Jae-min pressed, his dark eyes on the towns along the corridor.
"Mabalacat is burning." Mei reported, her voice dropping. "Gutierrez shelled the town at 02:00 to clear Navarro's sympathizers. The town had approximately twelve thousand civilians. ARTEMIS shows the town center destroyed. Estimated civilian casualties in Mabalacat alone: three thousand. Angeles is being evacuated, but the evacuation corridor is under fire. Porac is cut off. No data on Porac casualties — communication lines are down."
'Twelve thousand civilians in Mabalacat. Three thousand dead in one night.' Jae-min filed, the regressor pressing hard against the teeth, the captain holding, the father pressing harder.
Jennifer's hand found Alessia's on the bench by the window.
The telepath's fingers laced through the fundamental's, her blue eyes wet as she watched the map, her belly carrying the seventeenth.
She did not speak.
She held Alessia's hand and watched the map, feeling the baby in her belly and the war in her chest, the making and the unmaking blurring into the same raw ache.
"They are shelling the towns." Hua's voice came from the doorway, the chef standing in the frame with Eun-hae in the sling against her chest, the forty-eight-day-old baby sleeping against her mother's warmth. Hua's violet-blue eyes were on the map, her crimson hair loose, her jaw tight. "They are shelling the towns where the civilians are trapped."
"They are." Jae-min confirmed, his dark eyes finding Hua.
"Forty-seven thousand was the number yesterday. Nineteen thousand now." Hua measured, her voice low. "The number is climbing. The number is always climbing."
"The number is always climbing." Jae-min confirmed, his voice low.
"ARTEMIS continues wide-spectrum." Jae-min commanded, his dark eyes on Mei. "I want updates every hour. Every new engagement, every faction movement, every civilian casualty estimate. I want the pattern. I want to know where the war is going before it gets there."
"Copy." Mei confirmed, her fingers already on the keyboard, Chocho chirping softly in her lap.
"Elaine." Jae-min turned to the spy. "I want a profile on Tan. Background, weaknesses, pressure points. If Clark falls, I need to know who falls with it."
"Copy." Elaine confirmed, her black eyes already cataloging.
"Mark Jordan." Jae-min turned to Mark Jordan. "The AEGIS and the KOKO. Status."
"KOKO fabrication is at fourteen percent." Mark Jordan reported, his amber eyes on the console. "Mei and Aiko began the additive manufacturing runs at 04:00. First KOKO shell in sixteen days. AEGIS structural frame fabrication begins tomorrow, once the titanium-tungsten stock is milled. Six weeks to first unit."
"Gabby." Jae-min turned to the flyer. "Simulator. Eight hours today. Renz flies, Lia blinks. I want both proxies ready before the four weeks are up."
"Copy." Gabby confirmed, her eyes lifting, the brightness returning.
Jae-min's dark eyes swept the deck one last time. "We watch, we build, we train, and we hold Olympus. The war is not ours. Not yet. But the war is coming, and when it comes, Olympus will be ready."
"Copy." The deck confirmed, eight voices, one nod, and the crew turned back to their stations.
The map rotated on the main screen, the Philippine archipelago burning in false-color thermal, and in the center, the Subic-Pampanga corridor glowed the brightest — the fifty-kilometer stretch of highway where three factions killed each other over fuel and rice while the civilians died in the towns between them.
'The war is not ours. Not yet.' Jae-min filed, his dark eyes on the map, the captain holding, the regressor pressing, the father pressing harder, the weapon pressing hardest.
'Not yet.'
— • • • —
Day 437. 08:00 hours.
Olympus.
Level 5.
The Engineering Workshop.
Ji-yoo sat at her workstation with a half-eaten cup of instant noodles cooling beside her telemetry reports, her black eyes on the secondary monitor where the ARTEMIS feed mirrored in lower resolution.
Her fingers were still on the keyboard because the numbers on the screen had stopped being numbers and had become something else.
'Nineteen thousand dead. Six thousand in the corridor. The country is eating itself.' Ji-yoo filed, her jaw tightening, the fundamental who had named the fire watching her country burn on a screen she had built.
The workshop hummed around her, the PROMETHEUS vibration traveling through the walls, the fabrication units running the first KOKO additive manufacturing cycles in the corner.
The air smelled of ozone, heated titanium, and the particular chemical tang of instant noodle flavor packets.
Ji-yoo's cup was the only one on the desk.
She had eaten one cup this morning, not three, and the reduction felt like a victory and a defeat at the same time.
'One cup. He said one cup. I ate one cup. I am still watching our country burn.' Ji-yoo catalogued, her hand drifting to her neck, her fingers finding the thickness before she pulled her hand away because touching it made it real.
The workshop door opened, and Min-joo walked in with two cups of water and a ration bar, his black eyes finding her at the workstation.
He set the water beside her monitor, the ration bar beside the water, and did not say a word about the noodles.
"Drink." Min-joo instructed, his voice gentle, the steadiness that never broke. "You have been here since 05:00. You have eaten one cup of noodles and nothing else. Drink the water. Eat the bar."
"I am watching the war." Ji-yoo murmured, her black eyes on the screen, her voice flat. "Pampanga is burning. Mabalacat is gone. Three thousand civilians in one town. I cannot drink while I am watching."
"You can." Min-joo countered, his hand finding her shoulder, his thumb pressing the tension knotted between her shoulder blades. "You can watch and drink. You can watch and eat. The war will still be burning when you finish the water."
'He is always right. I hate that he is always right.' Ji-yoo conceded, her hand finding the water cup, her fingers closing around it.
She drank.
The water was cool, washing the sodium taste from her throat, settling her stomach, reminding her that she had a body and the body needed things that were not noodles.
"The baby." Min-joo pressed, his hand still on her shoulder. "How is the baby."
"Eight weeks." Ji-yoo murmured, her hand moving to her belly, her fingers pressing the slight swell beneath her shirt. "The nausea is mild today. One cup of noodles. The baby does not mind one cup. The baby minded three cups."
"The baby will mind the war." Min-joo observed, his black eyes on the screen, his hand tightening on her shoulder. "The baby will feel the stress, the cortisol. You need to step away from the screen, Ji-yoo. Not forever. For an hour. Eat the bar. Drink the water. Step away."
"I cannot step away." Ji-yoo defied, her black eyes on the map, her jaw tight. "I helped build the Satellite Link. I helped build the ARTEMIS interface. I named the fire and the sentinel. The war is on the screen because I helped put it there. I cannot step away from the thing I helped build."
"You helped build the screen. You did not help build the war." Min-joo countered, his hand moving from her shoulder to her jaw, his thumb tracing the line of her bone the way he had traced it last night. "Step away from the screen. The war will still be there when you come back."
'The war is not mine. The screen is mine.' Ji-yoo realized, her black eyes closing for a moment, her hand on her belly.
She opened her eyes, reached for the ration bar, unwrapped it, and took a bite. The bar was dry and tasteless and not noodles, but it was food, and her stomach accepted it, and the baby did not mind.
"One hour." Ji-yoo measured, her black eyes on Min-joo, her voice softening. "I will step away for one hour. I will eat the bar. I will drink the water. And then I will come back and watch the war."
"One hour." Min-joo confirmed, his thumb tracing her jaw one last time before he released her.
Ji-yoo ate the bar. She drank the water. She stepped away from the screen for one hour, and Min-joo sat in her chair and watched the war for her, his black eyes on the map, his steady surgeon's gaze cataloging the dead while his girlfriend rested in the corner with her hand on her belly.
'She cannot watch this. I can. That is what I am for.' Min-joo filed, his jaw tightening, the reluctant warrior watching the war so the musician did not have to.
— • • • —
Day 437. 12:00 hours.
Olympus.
Level 2.
The Command Deck.
Six hours later, the map had not improved.
Mei had not left her station.
Chocho had shifted in her lap, the white fox curling tighter, and Mei's crimson hair was falling loose from its tie, her violet-blue eyes still tracking the feeds.
She had eaten a ration bar at 09:00, drunk two cups of coffee, and filed four hundred and seventy-two new data points into ZEUS, and the numbers were still climbing.
"Update." Jae-min commanded from his chair, his dark eyes on the map, his hands folded on the table.
"Nine hundred and twelve active engagements as of 11:58, up from eight hundred and forty-seven at 06:00." Mei reported, her voice steady. "Sixty-five new engagements in six hours. The rate is slowing, but the intensity is increasing."
"Subic-Pampanga." Jae-min pressed.
"Three hundred and four engagements in the corridor, up from two hundred and ninety-one at 06:00." Mei zoomed in, the map filling with the solid red of the SCTEX front. "Navarro has reinforced his eastern column. Gutierrez has moved his artillery west. Tan has lost the eastern warehouses. Clark is contracting."
"Casualties." Jae-min pressed.
"Twenty-three thousand dead since 06:00 yesterday." Mei's voice did not waver, but her fingers stilled on the keyboard, Chocho chirping softly. "Four thousand in the last six hours. The Subic-Pampanga corridor accounts for eight thousand of the total. Angeles is being evacuated under fire. Porac is silent — no thermal signatures, no communications. The town is either empty or dead."
'Porac is silent. That means Porac is dead.' Jae-min filed, his jaw tightening.
"Manila." Jae-min pressed.
"The Children of the Frost took the Quezon City warehouses at 08:00." Mei reported, her fingers pulling up the capital region. "The government coalition fell back to the port area. The religious faction is now the largest single faction in Manila, approximately six thousand armed. They are executing civilians in the warehouse district. ARTEMIS shows mass thermal signatures consistent with executions at three sites."
"Executions." Jae-min repeated, his dark eyes on the map.
"Executions." Mei confirmed, her voice flat. "The Children of the Frost are executing civilians suspected of hoarding food. The executions are public. ARTEMIS shows the thermal signatures of approximately two hundred bodies at each site. Six hundred dead in three sites since 08:00."
The Command Deck was quiet, the map pulsing, the numbers climbing.
"Pampanga is the center." Jae-min declared, his dark eyes on the corridor. "Pampanga is where the war will be decided. When Clark falls, Subic and Pampanga go direct, the winner takes the fuel and the rice, and the winner controls the food supply for half the country."
"And the winner comes for Olympus." Elaine observed from the long window, her black eyes on the captain.
"And the winner comes for Olympus." Jae-min confirmed. "Olympus is the only place that has food that does not run out."
"How long?" Alessia pressed from the bench, her black eyes on the map, her hand on her belly where Jin was fifty-two days from arriving.
"Clark falls in seventy-two hours, maybe less." Elaine measured, her black eyes on the corridor. "Subic and Pampanga go direct. The direct war lasts days, maybe a week. The winner consolidates, turns south. The winner reaches Olympus in two weeks, maybe three."
'Two weeks. Jin arrives in fifty-two days. The war reaches Olympus in fourteen.' Alessia filed, her hand tightening on her belly, the doctor calculating, the mother fearing.
"We have fourteen days." Jae-min declared, his dark eyes on the deck. "Fourteen days until the winner of Pampanga reaches Olympus. Fourteen days to build the first KOKO, train the proxies, prepare the fortress."
"The first AEGIS is six weeks." Mark Jordan observed, his amber eyes on the captain. "We will not have the AEGIS in fourteen days."
"Yeah" Jae-min confirmed. "We will have the KOKO. We will have the proxies, the frames, the Spatial Storage, the void. And we will have Olympus."
'Fourteen days. No AEGIS. No wall. Just the knights and the captain and the food that does not run out.' Jae-min filed, the captain cataloging.
"The war is coming in fourteen days." Jae-min declared, his dark eyes on the map. "And Olympus will be ready."
"Copy." The deck confirmed, eight voices, one nod.
— • • • —
Day 437. 14:00 hours.
Olympus.
Level 5.
The HERACLES Simulation Cockpit.
The simulator hummed in the basement, the two cockpits running in parallel sessions, and the two grounded pilots stood at their consoles, their eyes on their proxies.
Yue stood at the first console with her marble eyes on Lia, the seventeen-year-old girl who was cutting space at 1.4 meters now.
The spatial tear was growing with every push, the blink coming closer.
Lia's hands were steady on the grips, her flat eyes closed, her thin body leaning into the power waking inside her.
"Cut." Yue commanded, her voice flat, the discipline masking the fire beneath. "The cut is the sword. The sword does not push. The sword cuts. Cut."
Lia cut.
The simulator hummed.
The console showed a spatial tear at 1.6 meters, the largest yet, and Yue's marble eyes tracked the number with the particular satisfaction of a mentor who had found her student.
'She is faster than I was. The cage gave her nothing, and the nothing made her hungry, and the hunger makes her fast.' Yue filed, her hand resting on her belly where the child was three weeks along.
The nausea sat in the back of her throat, the mild kind she had been filing under as not relevant for days.
She swallowed it the way she swallowed everything — with the discipline that had made her the sword.
"Blink." Yue commanded. "The cut is the hole. The blink is the step through the hole. You cut. You step. You appear on the other side. Try."
Lia tried.
The console showed a spatial displacement of 0.3 meters — the first blink, small and unsteady, but real. The girl had stepped through the hole.
'She blinked in just three days.' Yue filed, her marble eyes on the girl, her jaw tight.
"Again." Yue commanded, her voice flat, but her hand on her belly, the swordswoman and the mother in the same body.
Across the room, Gabby stood at the second console with her golden eyes on Renz, the sixteen-year-old boy who was riding the wind at 74 meters per second now, the wind cage at 3.8 meters radius.
Renz's hands were steady on the grips, his thin body leaning into the power waking inside him.
"Ride." Gabby commanded, her voice small but steady, the brightness refusing to dim. "The cage is the platform. The flight is the movement. Form the cage. Stand on the cage. Move the cage. Fly."
Renz flew.
The console showed a wind cage displacement of 4.2 meters, the largest yet, and Gabby's golden eyes tracked the number with the particular pride of a mentor who had found her student.
'Two days. Maybe less. He is flying.' Gabby filed, her hand resting on her belly where the nineteenth was three weeks along.
The nausea sat in the back of her throat, the mild kind she had been filing under not now for days.
She swallowed it the way she swallowed everything — with the brightness that refused to dim.
"Flight." Gabby commanded. "The cage is formed. The cage is moving. The cage lifts. The cage carries you. Fly."
Renz flew.
The console showed a vertical displacement of 0.8 meters — the first lift, small and unsteady, but real. The boy had flown.
'He flew in just three days.' Gabby filed, her golden eyes on the boy, her hand on her belly.
"Again." Gabby commanded, her voice small but bright, and the boy flew again, and the girl cut again, and the two proxies learned to be the sword and the flyer while the two grounded pilots watched with their hands on their bellies and their powers in the hands of the children they were training.
The simulator hummed.
The war burned five hundred kilometers south.
And in the basement of the workshop, the next generation of the fist was being forged, one cut and one flight at a time.
— • • • —
Day 437. 18:00 hours.
Olympus.
Level 2.
The Command Deck.
The map had worsened again.
Mei had not left her station in twelve hours, Chocho had shifted twice in her lap, and the numbers had climbed with the same relentless inevitability as the tide.
"Final update." Jae-min commanded, his dark eyes on the map, his hands folded on the table.
"Nine hundred and eighty-seven active engagements as of 17:58, up from nine hundred and twelve at 12:00." Mei reported, her voice steady despite the number. "Seventy-five new engagements in six hours. The rate is accelerating again."
"Subic-Pampanga." Jae-min pressed.
"Three hundred and twenty-one engagements in the corridor, up from three hundred and four at 12:00." Mei zoomed in, the map filling with the solid red of the SCTEX front. "Navarro has committed his reserves to the eastern push. Gutierrez has moved his heavy artillery to the Mabalacat line. Tan has lost the eastern perimeter. Clark is contracting to the airfield itself."
"Casualties." Jae-min pressed.
"Twenty-eight thousand dead since 06:00 yesterday." Mei's voice did not waver, but her fingers stilled on the keyboard, Chocho chirping softly. "Five thousand in the last six hours. The Subic-Pampanga corridor accounts for eleven thousand of the total. Angeles is being evacuated under artillery fire. Estimated civilian casualties in Angeles: two thousand and rising."
'Twenty-eight thousand. In thirty-six hours. Our country.' Jae-min filed, his jaw tightening, the captain holding, the regressor pressing, the father pressing harder.
"Clark falls." Jae-min declared, his dark eyes on the corridor. "When?"
"Forty-eight hours." Elaine measured from the long window, her black eyes on the map. "Maybe less. Tan's ammunition is critical. When the airfield falls, the corridor opens, and Subic and Pampanga go direct."
"Forty-eight hours." Jae-min murmured. "Then the direct war. Then the consolidation. Then the march south."
"Then the march south." Elaine confirmed. "Fourteen days. Maybe less."
'Fourteen days. Jin arrives in fifty-one. The war arrives in fourteen.' Alessia filed from the bench, her hand on her belly, the doctor calculating, the mother fearing.
The Command Deck was quiet, the map pulsing, the numbers climbing, and the crew watched the war that was not yet theirs, but that was coming for them with the inevitability of the freeze that had started it all.
"The war is coming in fourteen days." Jae-min declared, his dark eyes on the map. "Olympus watches. Olympus builds. Olympus trains. Olympus holds. And when the war comes, Olympus will be ready."
"Copy." The deck confirmed, eight voices, one nod, and the crew turned back to the map, the numbers climbing, the war burning, Pampanga the brightest fire on a burning archipelago.
The map rotated on the main screen, the Philippine archipelago in false-color thermal, and in the center of the map, the Subic-Pampanga corridor glowed solid red, the fifty-kilometer stretch of highway where three factions killed each other over fuel and rice while the civilians died in the towns between them, and the war was coming, and Olympus watched, and the fourteen days had begun.
The war had begun.
And Olympus was watching.
And Olympus was preparing.
And the fourteen days were counting down.