Day 30.
The Kernel.
Sauget, Illinois.
00:45 Hours.
The hologram of the 5-State Region hovered in the center of the room, casting a sickly green pallor over the faces of my crew.
They weren't looking at the map. They were looking at the floor, at the walls, at their own hands.
They were physically perfect. The System Mercy had wiped away their scars, their infections, their malnutrition. They looked stronger and healthier than they had on Day 1. Their skin glowed with renewed vitality.
But their eyes were dead.
"Thirty days," Helen whispered.
She was leaning against a bank of servers, staring at nothing. Her voice didn't rattle anymore—her lungs were pink and new—but the words sounded heavy, like stones dropping into a deep well.
"We killed two hundred people," she said. "We burned the Enclave. We fed seven men into a woodchipper. We let Paul die. We poisoned children in the Coalition camp."
She looked at me. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. She was past crying.
"We did it because you said there was a clock, Jack. You said if we didn't make the Top 10, the world ended. You said it was math."
"It was math," I said. "We survived."
"For what?" Helen screamed. Her voice echoed in the metal chamber, vibrating against the cooling pipes. "It wasn't the end! It was just... the tutorial? All that blood, all that horror, just to qualify for the next round?"
She slid down the wall, putting her head in her hands.
"I can't do it again," she sobbed. "I can't kill anymore people just to buy another month. I'm a doctor, Jack. I'm supposed to save people."
I looked at Travis.
The big man was sitting on the edge of the grate, his legs dangling over the void. He was flexing his new arm—the club-arm. He looked at the fused bone knuckles, turning the limb over in the green light.
"Boss," Travis rumbled.
"Yeah, Travis?"
"So we keep fighting?"
"We keep fighting," I said.
Travis sighed. It was a sound like a tire deflating.
"What's the fucking point?" he asked softly. "I thought... I thought if we beat the clock, I could rest. I thought I could stop being this."
He gestured to his grey skin. To the veins pulsing orange.
"I'm tired, Boss. I know the System fixed my body. I don't hurt. But inside... I'm just tired of smashing things. I don't want to be a Tank anymore. I want to be a guy who drives a truck."
"I know," I said. "But if you stop smashing, they smash us."
"Let them," Ronnie muttered.
Ronnie was standing by the ladder, his hand hovering over his empty eye socket. The skin was smooth, healed, but the loss was still there. The phantom pain of the spoon.
"I want off this ride," Ronnie said. "I didn't sign up for a war. I signed up for a job. I lost my eye. I lost Sal. And now you're telling me there's a Phase 2? And a Phase 3? Does it ever end, Jack?"
"It ends when we win," I said.
"Nobody wins," Ronnie said, spitting on the floor. "We just survive until we don't."
The despair was palpable. It was a physical weight in the room, heavier than the gravity. They were breaking. The System had fixed their bodies, but it had shattered their hope. They had sprinted to the finish line only to find out it was the starting gun for a marathon.
Then, a mechanical voice cut through the gloom.
"Upgrade path detected."
We all looked at Boyd.
The kid was standing at the terminal. He wasn't looking at us. He was staring into the code scrolling across the screen. His blue eyes were darting back and forth, reading data at a speed that wasn't human. He was vibrating with a low-frequency hum that matched the servers.
"Phase 2 is more efficient," Boyd droned. "Phase 1 was chaos. Random spawns. Resource scarcity. Phase 2 introduces Territory Management. Automation. Supply lines."
He tapped the screen. The hologram shifted, showing a web of blue lines connecting Sector 1 to the surrounding ruins.
"We can build factories," Boyd said, his voice rising with a strange, flat excitement. "Ammo presses. Water filtration. We can automate the defense. We don't have to fight with hammers anymore. We can fight with systems."
He looked at me. His smile was too wide. Too symmetrical.
"This is better, Architect. The variables are controllable."
"It's a wargame, Boyd," Yana said. She was standing in the shadows, her hand protective over her stomach. "It's not a simulation. Those red dots? Those are people. And we have to kill them."
"Inefficient elements must be purged," Boyd said. "To ensure the stability of the prime node."
Yana shuddered. "You sound like the Administrator."
"I sound like the future," Boyd said.
I stepped into the center of the room.
"Enough," I said.
My voice was hard. The Cruelty trait didn't allow for pity parties. It analyzed the morale failure and calculated the solution.
"You're right," I said to Helen. "It sucks. It's a nightmare. We ran a marathon just to find out it was the warm-up lap."
I looked at Travis.
"You're tired. Good. Be tired. But don't be dead."
I pointed at the map. At the massive red skull pulsing to the south. The Tier 4 Hive-Mind.
"That thing spawns in forty-eight hours," I said. "It's the size of a building. It spawns Runners like a queen bee lays eggs. If we give up now—if we sit here and cry about the unfairness of the universe—it will eat us. It will eat Ronnie. It will eat Paige. It will eat everything we built."
I looked at Paige.
She was standing next to Ronnie. She hadn't spoken. She was looking at the Logistics Class notification floating in her vision. She was tracing the air with her finger, reading the stats.
"Paige," I said.
She looked up. Her eyes were clear. Harder than they had been an hour ago.
"At least we're alive," she said quietly.
The room went silent.
"What?" Helen asked.
"We're alive," Paige repeated, her voice gaining strength. "Look at the counter."
She pointed at the hologram.
`[TOTAL TERRITORIES REMAINING: 172.]`
"There were five thousand territories on Day 1," Paige said. "Four thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight warlords are dead. They died screaming. They died hungry. They died alone."
She looked at me.
"We're here. We're fed. We're healed. We have a fortress. We have a Tank."
She walked over to the terminal. She placed her hand next to mine on the glass.
"I don't care about the New Eden," Paige said. "I don't care about the Seed Code. I just want to live to see tomorrow. And Jack..."
She looked at the crew.
"Jack gets us to tomorrow. He's a bastard. He's a monster. But he wins."
Travis grunted. He stood up, the metal grate creaking under his weight.
"She's right," Travis said. He picked up his sledgehammer. "I don't know about phases. I don't know about servers. But I know I can smash that Hive."
He looked at me. The orange glow in his eyes flared.
"What's the plan, Boss?"
I felt a tension in my chest release. They weren't happy. They were traumatized, angry, and terrified.
But they were functional.
"The plan," I said, "is expansion."
I pointed to the map.
"We have twenty-three hours of prep time before the walls drop. We aren't going to wait for the Hive to spawn. We aren't going to wait for the Enclave to regroup."
I tapped the Red Faction territory on Highway 40.
"We own the road now," I said. "That means we control the trade routes. We're going to open the gates."
"Open them?" Ronnie asked. "You want to let people in? After the Usurpation Protocol?"
"Phase 2 isn't about hiding," I said. "It's about empire. We need bodies. We need soldiers. We need workers."
I looked at Boyd.
"Rig the broadcast tower," I ordered. "Wideband. Unencrypted. 5-State reach."
"Message content?" Boyd asked.
"Recruitment," I said. "Tell them Sector 1 is open. Tell them we have food. Tell them we have walls. Tell them if they pledge loyalty, they eat."
I looked at Yana.
"And tell them," I added, "that if they cross us, we have a Tank."
Yana smiled. It was a thin, razor-sharp expression. "Wolf and sheep."
"Wolf and sheep," I agreed.
I turned to the ladder.
"Let's go upstairs," I said. "The sun is coming up. And I want to see what a green sunrise looks like."
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 30
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████████░ 9/10 Nodes
STATUS: PHASE 2 INITIALIZED
Morale: STABILIZED (Resignation/Resolve)
Objective: Recruitment Drive
Next Event: The Null Uprising