The Integration Council's tactical room smelled like stale coffee and escalating panic. Twenty-three government representatives on holographic displays, each one representing a country that had woken up to find their quantum research facilities had gone silent overnight.
I stood beside the main tactical display, tracking facility status with the precision I'd spent nine years developing as a hunter. Eleven red indicators showing complete communication loss. One yellow indicator—Japan's KEK laboratory—still transmitting intermittent signals.
Twelve facilities total. Eleven dead. One dying.
"Ms. Hunter," said Ambassador Chen from the Chinese delegation, his Mandarin filtering through real-time translation software, "you're telling us that interdimensional entities have occupied eleven of the world's most advanced research facilities, and conventional military response is inadvisable?"
