Day 30.
The Kernel.
Sauget, Illinois.
02:00 Hours.
The secret of the child was locked away in Yana's womb, a ghost in the machine that the System couldn't parse. Now, we had to unlock the rest of the world.
I stood at the edge of the breach in the factory floor. The jackhammer lay silent on its side, the bit still smoking from the friction of breaking through the fused slag of the Fuser. Beneath us, the green light pulsed with a slow, rhythmic heartbeat, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
"Travis," I said. "Peel it back."
The Tank stepped forward. He looked different in the green light. His skin, usually a dull grey, looked like polished obsidian. He flexed his new arm—the one fused by the serum—testing the weight. The club-hand was a mass of calcified bone and callus, fingers thick as sausages and locked into a permanent crushing grip.
He knelt, jamming his mismatched fingers into the crack I had drilled.
"Open," Travis grunted.
The muscles in his back coiled like steel cables under his skin. He pulled.
SCREEECH.
The sound was agonizing—concrete grinding against concrete, steel rebar snapping with the report of small-caliber pistol fire. The slab didn't just crack; it tore. Travis hauled a six-foot section of the foundation upright and shoved it aside. It crashed onto the factory floor with a sound like a bomb going off, shaking the catwalks above.
We looked down.
Underneath, embedded in the foundation of the factory, was a heavy, circular hatch made of a metal that wasn't steel. It was seamless, matte-black, and absolutely pristine. It drank the light.
Etched into the center, glowing with that same impossible emerald energy, was a single word.
KERNEL.
A blast of air hissed up from the seal. It didn't smell like rot. It didn't smell like the slurry tanks or the burnt meat of the siege. It smelled of ozone, super-cooled nitrogen, and static electricity.
It smelled like the inside of a computer that had been running for a thousand years.
"What is that?" Paige whispered. She was standing behind me, clutching her mop handle like a spear. Her eyes were wide, reflecting the green glow. "Jack, what is under us?"
"The engine," I said.
I looked at Boyd. The kid was vibrating. His Technomancer implants—the copper wires he had threaded into his own neck, the silver sheen of his skin—were resonating with whatever was down there. He tilted his head, listening to a frequency none of us could hear.
"It's the Kernel," Boyd whispered, his voice devoid of inflection, purely synthesized. "The core code. Sector 1 isn't just a factory. It's the CPU."
"Open it," I ordered Travis.
Travis gripped the wheel. It should have been seized by thirty years of industrial runoff and rust. Instead, it spun effortlessly on magnetic bearings, silent and smooth.
HISS-THUNK.
The locking mechanism disengaged. The heavy door swung upward on hydraulic pistons, revealing a shaft illuminated by strips of pulsing green LEDs that spiraled down into the dark.
"I'll go first," I said, checking the load on the Fang .45. "Boyd, you're second. Travis, rear guard. Yana, watch the perimeter. If the Enclave comes back, they'll see the lights. Be ready."
"I'm coming too," Ronnie said. He stepped forward, his shotgun racked. He touched the patch over his missing eye. The skin around it was pink and new, thanks to the System Mercy, but the socket was still empty. "I'm not staying up here in the dark. Not again."
I looked at him. The System had flagged him as a Constructor candidate during the drone swarm. He had earned his ticket to the war room.
"Fine," I said. "Watch your step."
I climbed down.
The shaft was deep. Thirty feet of vertical descent, bypassing the ruined sewers and the foundation pilings of the old chemical plant. The walls of the shaft were lined with cooling pipes that hummed with a low, powerful vibration, carrying liquid nitrogen to the processor below.
I hit the floor. It was a grate, suspended over a black void that dropped away into nothingness. I could hear the hum of massive fans spinning somewhere far below, cycling air for a machine the size of a city.
I looked up. Boyd, Ronnie, Paige, and Travis were scrambling down behind me.
We were standing in a circular room. The walls were curved, lined with banks of server towers, coolant pipes, and data terminals that flickered with streams of binary code. It looked like the bridge of a spaceship buried in the Illinois mud.
In the center of the room, a single pedestal rose from the floor.
THE KERNEL TERMINAL.
`[LOCAL NODE DETECTED.]`
`[SECTOR 1: HARDLINE CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.]`
`[ARCHITECT RECOGNIZED: JACK MONROE.]`
"It's a server farm," Boyd whispered, walking toward the walls. He reached out and touched a bank of drives. "Jack... this whole facility... the Coldwell plant... it was built on top of this. The System didn't just appear on Day 1. It was always here. Buried. Waiting."
"Focus," I said. "We have twenty-three hours before the walls drop."
I walked to the central terminal. There was no keyboard. No mouse. Just a handprint scanner on a sheet of black glass.
I placed my hand on the glass. It was cold enough to burn.
FLASH.
The room exploded with light.
A holographic projection erupted from the pedestal, expanding until it filled the entire chamber. It passed through us, a web of blue and green light constructing a 3D model of the world.
It wasn't just the Silo anymore. It wasn't just Sauget.
It was the Region.
The boundaries of East St. Louis shrank until they were just a speck. I saw the Mississippi River winding like a black snake through the glowing terrain. I saw the ruins of St. Louis. I saw the highways stretching out into the dark like glowing arteries.
5-STATE REGION UNLOCKED.
Illinois
Missouri
Iowa
Indiana
Kentucky
`[PHASE 2 PREPARATION: 23 HOURS REMAINING.]`
`[OBJECTIVE: EXPANSION.]`
"Look at the dots," Paige said, pointing at the map. Her hand passed through a holographic mountain range.
The map was covered in red dots. Hundreds of them. Glowing like embers in ash.
"Territories," I said. "Survivors."
`[TOTAL TERRITORIES REMAINING: 172.]`
`[GENESIS SELECTION TARGET: 10.]`
The Voice—the one that had spoken at midnight—boomed in the small room, vibrating against the metal walls.
"ATTENTION, SURVIVORS. PHASE 1 WAS THE FILTER. PHASE 2 IS THE FORGE."
I zoomed in. I pinched the air, collapsing the view down to our immediate sector.
But it wasn't just territories anymore. The map was littered with new, specific icons. They weren't red hostility markers. They were Resource Symbols.
Fuel Pump Icon (3 miles West): An abandoned Gas Station complex.
Ammo Icon (5 miles North): A Police Impound Lot.
Wheat Icon (8 miles South): A Grain Silo Complex.
Medical Cross (Downtown): An Urgent Care Center.
`[NEW MECHANIC: RESOURCE OUTPOSTS.]`
`[CLAIMING AN OUTPOST PROVIDES DAILY PASSIVE INCOME.]`
`[CURRENT CAP: 0/3 OUTPOSTS.]`
"It's a strategy game," Boyd whispered, his blue eyes scanning the data stream. "We don't just scavenge anymore, Jack. We farm. Look at the data stream. If we claim that Ammo Outpost, the System generates generic caliber rounds for us every 24 hours. If we claim the Fuel Pump, the Gutter never runs dry."
"Infinite ammo?" Ronnie asked, looking at the icon like it was a pile of gold. "We don't have to count bullets?"
"As long as we hold the territory," I said. "It turns the war from survival to conquest. We don't have to raid hardware stores for scraps. We take the source."
Then, the map turned red.
The Voice boomed again, shaking the dust from the cooling pipes.
"PHASE 2 UPDATE: VIRAL LATENCY ADJUSTED."
A new text box scrolled across the hologram, glowing with a menacing crimson light.
[INFECTION PROTOCOL 2.0]
Vector: Fluid transmission (Bites/Scratches).
Latency: Reduced.
Time to Reanimation: 60 MINUTES.
Cure: None. (Amputation required within 120 seconds).
The room went deadly silent.
"One hour?" Paige whispered, her hand going to her throat. "If we get bit... we turn in an hour?"
"It used to be days," Helen said over the comms, her voice tight. "The flu took a week to kill. This... this is weaponized. It's aggressive."
"It changes everything," I said. "No more brawling in the mud. If a Runner gets close enough to break skin, you're dead. There is no 'waiting to see if you get sick.' You get bit, you put a bullet in your head or you cut the limb off right there."
I looked at Travis. He was the only one in the room who didn't look terrified. His skin was stone. He was immune to bites because teeth couldn't get through his hide.
"Travis is the only one who can risk melee," I said. "The rest of you... you keep your distance. Unless..."
I looked at Ronnie. He was pale, touching his eyepatch. He was a welder, not a soldier. In this new world, he was meat.
"System," I commanded. "Display Candidate Status."
The hologram shifted to show Ronnie's profile.
CANDIDATE: RONNIE (NULL)
CLASS: CONSTRUCTOR.
UNLOCK CONDITION: PHASE 2 START.
I tapped the skill tree. A new passive ability flared to life.
[PASSIVE SKILL: FOREMAN'S VOICE.]
Effect: Increases work speed, combat reaction time, and stamina of all nearby Nulls by 10%.
Mechanic: Effect Stacks.
Range: 50 Meters.
Description: "The crew works harder when the boss is watching."
I looked at Ronnie.
"You see that?" I asked.
Ronnie squinted at the text. "Effect stacks? What does that mean?"
"It means numbers matter," I said. "You buff them by 10%. But if we find another Constructor? That's 20%. If we find five? That's a 50% boost to speed and stamina. We turn a group of starving laborers into a supersoldier squad."
I looked at the group.
"You aren't just a welder anymore, Ron. You're a force multiplier. If you're on the wall, every Null next to you fights faster, works harder, and dies slower. You keep them alive."
Ronnie straightened up. He looked at Paige. He looked at the other Nulls who would be looking to him for orders. He wasn't just a victim with one eye anymore. He was an officer.
"I can do that," Ronnie said. His voice was steady. "We can build a crew."
Then, the final rule dropped. The one I had been dreading.
RULE 3: USURPATION PROTOCOL.
Class Locks are disabled.
Any Null who delivers a killing blow to a User instantly inherits that User's Class, Level, and Stats.
Warning: Friendly Fire is enabled.
The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
I saw Paige's eyes dart to the Fang on my hip. I saw Ronnie look at Travis's massive, glowing form.
"Kill a User, become a User," Boyd whispered.
"It's trying to make us kill each other," Yana said from the shadows. "It's introducing internal competition."
"It's trying to weed out the weak Users," I said. "If a Null can kill me, I didn't deserve the class. That's the System's logic."
I stepped closer to the group. I let the Cruelty trait flare, letting them feel the cold weight of my presence.
"But we aren't playing that game," I said. "Ronnie, you're a Constructor. Paige, you're Logistics. You don't need to kill us to upgrade. You just need to survive the next twenty-two hours."
I pointed at the map. At the Fuel Outpost three miles west.
"Phase 2 starts in 22 hours," I said. "We need fuel for the turret. We need ammo for the guns. And we need to secure that outpost before the Zealots do."
I looked at Travis.
"You ready to claim some territory?"
Travis smashed his club-hand into his palm. It sounded like a gunshot.
"Smash," Travis grunted.
"Good," I said. "Load up. We're going to expand the map."
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 30
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████████░ 9/10 Nodes
NEW RULES:
Resource Outposts (Passive Income)
Infection Timer: 1 Hour (Lethal)
Usurpation (PvP Enabled)
NEW ASSET: Constructor Aura (Stacking Null Buff)
NEXT EVENT: The Choice / The Broadcast