Blaring alarms.
Ringing metal.
Sirens.
That was all Director Graham could hear as consciousness slowly clawed its way back.
The noise battered against his skull.
His breathing came out uneven as he struggled to move.
His eyes tried to open.
At first only a thin slit.
The world beyond was distorted, shapes and colors blurring together. Red light flashed again and again across the control room, the emergency lamps painting everything in violent bursts.
His vision struggled to focus.
Through the narrow gap of his eyelids, he could still make out one figure standing near the central console.
Commander Miller.
She stood facing the main screens.
The monitors no longer showed city surveillance.
Instead, the displays were filled with military data.
Rows of telemetry.
Missile silo feeds.
Launch confirmation markers.
And above them all, a curved projection charting multiple trajectories arcing outward from the facility.
Missiles.
