Day 30.
The Command Deck.
Sauget, Illinois.
03:00 Hours.
The green light of the map table cast long, skeletal shadows against the walls of the office. It turned the sweat on Travis's skin into emerald beads and made Boyd's silver eyes look like burning magnesium.
We stood around the hologram—the inner circle of Sector 1.
I looked at the map. The 5-State Region.
It was too big. It was terrifyingly vast. And in the center of it, our Silo was a speck of blue dust, a single pixel of order surrounded by a sea of red hostility.
To the south, fifteen miles out, the Tier 4 Leviathan icon pulsed like a tumor. It was growing. The red smear on the map was expanding pixel by pixel as we watched, consuming the grey fog of war.
`[THREAT: HIVE-MIND LEVIATHAN.]`
`[SPAWN TIMER: 46 HOURS.]`
`[TRAJECTORY: NORTH (SECTOR 1).]`
"It's coming here," Yana whispered. She traced the red path with a finger. "It's not wandering. It's hunting."
"It detects the Kernel," Boyd said. His voice was a flat buzz, vibrating with the server hum. "High-density data streams attract high-tier entities. We are a beacon."
"We have to choose," I said. My voice was steady. The System Mercy had wiped my anxiety, leaving only a cold, crystalline calculation engine in its place. "The clock didn't stop. It just got louder."
I tapped the table, highlighting four distinct paths on the display. I looked at each of them in turn.
"Option One," I said. "Fortify. We turtle. We seal the gates, reinforce the walls with bone concrete, and try to ride out the Leviathan spawn. We hope it eats the Zealots first."
"Option Two," I continued. "Flee. We pack the truck. We abandon the Silo. We head north, toward Iowa, away from the Hive-Mind and the Enclave. We become nomads."
"Option Three," I said, pointing at the violet stain of St. Louis. "Ally. We submit. We take Eclipse's offer. We merge with the Reborn or the Enclave. We become Vassals."
"Option Four," I finished. "Expand. We attack. We claim the resource outposts. We build an army. We kill the Leviathan."
I looked at them.
"Vote."
Helen spoke first. She was leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Her lungs were healed, pink and new, but her eyes were still old. They held the memory of the triage tent, of the amputations, of the gas.
"Flee," she said immediately. "We barely survived Phase 1, Jack. Look at the map. There are 172 warlords out there. The Enclave has tanks. The Zealots have monsters. We have... us. Twenty-eight people."
She stepped forward, pleading.
"We should take the truck and go. Find a place in the woods where the System doesn't look. Somewhere quiet."
"Inefficient," Boyd interrupted. He didn't look at her; he looked at the energy grid. "The System is global. There is no 'woods.' There is only un-colonized territory. If we flee, we lose the Silo's defensive bonus. We lose the Kernel. Survival probability drops to 12%."
"We Fortify," Ronnie said.
He touched the patch over his missing eye. He looked at the Constructor Class notification floating in his vision.
"I can build," Ronnie said. "With the new class... Jack, I can make these walls harder than steel. I can layer the bone concrete. I can rig traps. Let them come to us. Let them break their teeth on our walls."
"If we turtle," Paige said, her voice sharp as a razor, "we starve."
She walked to the table. The blue aura of the Logistics Candidate shimmered around her fingers as she manipulated the resource data. She pulled up a spreadsheet that hovered in the air.
"I ran the numbers," Paige said. "Even with the current stockpile, even with the scavenged Enclave rations... if we lock the gates, we run out of food in fourteen days. The resource outposts are outside the walls. If we don't claim the Wheat Icon or the Ammo Dump, we die of attrition inside our own castle."
She looked at Ronnie.
"You can build walls, Ron. But you can't build calories."
"So we fight," Travis rumbled.
He was standing in the back, massive and silent. He tapped his club-arm against his leg—a rhythmic thud-thud-thud.
"We take the outposts," Travis said. "We smash the Hive. If we run, we're prey. If we hide, we're food. We have to be the predator."
"That's suicide," Yana said.
She was standing next to me. She kept her hand over her stomach, protecting the anomaly.
"If we expand, we stretch our lines," Yana argued. "We leave the Silo vulnerable. We can't hold three outposts with twenty-eight people. We'll be spread too thin."
It was a split vote.
Helen: Flee. (Fear)
Ronnie: Fortify. (Security)
Travis/Boyd: Expand. (Combat/Logic)
Yana: Hybrid/Fortify. (Caution)
Paige: Logistics. (Resource Reality)
They all looked at me.
"Jack?" Paige asked. "What's the play?"
I looked at the map.
I looked at the Enclave base to the East. They were military. Rigid. They would follow doctrine—regroup, resupply, attack in force with overwhelming numbers.
I looked at the Zealots in the West. They were a virus. They would spread, converting everything they touched into biomass for their mutations.
And to the South... the Leviathan. A deadline that couldn't be negotiated with.
"We don't flee," I said. "Because Boyd is right. There is nowhere to run. The map ends at the ocean, and the ocean is probably boiling."
"We don't ally," I continued. "Because submission is death. Eclipse will turn us into Howlers. Hale will turn us into batteries."
I looked at Ronnie.
"And we don't fortify," I said. "Because a wall is just a coffin with a door. If we sit here, the Leviathan grows. It spawns a million Runners. Eventually, they climb over the pile of their own dead and eat us."
I placed my hand on the center of the map.
"We Expand."
Helen groaned, covering her face. "Jack, how? With what army?"
"We build one," I said.
I tapped the empty grey zones between the territories. The unclaimed spaces.
"There are survivors out there," I said. "Nulls. Stragglers. People hiding in basements waiting to die. People terrified of the Usurpation Protocol."
I looked at Ronnie.
"Tell me about your skill, Ron. Foreman's Voice."
Ronnie blinked. "It... it buffs Nulls. Makes them work faster. Fight harder. Ten percent boost."
"And it stacks," I said. "Ten percent per Constructor. If we find five Constructors? That's a 50% boost to speed and stamina. We turn a group of starving laborers into a supersoldier squad without using a single drop of Serum."
I looked at the room.
"We offer them a third option," I said. "The Enclave offers slavery. The Zealots offer mutation. We offer a job."
"A job?" Ronnie asked.
"Food for work," I said. "Protection for loyalty. We open the gates. We broadcast on every frequency. We tell them that Sector 1 is a Sanctuary. We tell them that here, Usurpation is illegal. We tell them that if they pledge to the Architect, they eat."
"You want to let strangers in?" Yana hissed. "After the mutiny? After the poison?"
"We vet them," I said. "We use Decay Sight. We use the Constructor Aura to manage them. We build a legion, Yana. Not of soldiers, but of builders."
I looked at the Resource Outposts.
"We take the Fuel Pump first," I said. "Then the Ammo Dump. We use the new recruits to hold them. We turn Sector 1 into a manufacturing hub. We sell bullets to the other warlords. We sell water. We make ourselves indispensable."
I looked at the crew.
"Phase 1 was about surviving," I said. "Phase 2 is about economics. And I intend to own the market."
`[ADMINISTRATOR: STRATEGY ANALYSIS... VIABLE.]`
`[LOGIC: ECONOMIC DOMINANCE = RESOURCE SUPREMACY.]`
`[ROOT: BORING. BUT IF IT LEADS TO WAR... I ALLOW IT.]`
"It's risky," Paige said. She was calculating. "If we let too many in, we risk another mutiny. The ratio of Users to Nulls will be dangerous."
"That's why we have a Tank," I said, nodding to Travis. "And a Shadow. And a Cruelty Trait."
I turned to Boyd.
"Rig the broadcast tower," I ordered. "Wideband. Unencrypted. 5-State reach. Boost the signal until it burns the coils."
"Message content?" Boyd asked, his fingers already twitching in the air.
"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 live."
I walked to the window. The sun was rising on Day 30. The green light of the sky made the world look alien, toxic, and full of opportunity.
"And tell them," I added, my voice dropping to a whisper, "that if they cross us, we have a monster who eats Fusers for breakfast."
Travis grinned. His teeth were grey against the orange glow of his gums.
"Wolf and sheep," Yana whispered.
"Wolf and sheep," I agreed. "But this time, we're the shepherds. And we need a flock to shear."
I turned back to the map.
Rank 172.
"Let's go shopping," I said.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 30
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████████░ 9/10 Nodes
STRATEGY: EMPIRE BUILDING
Objective: Recruit Nulls / Seize Resource Nodes
Threat: Leviathan (46 Hours)
Next Event: The Architect's Creed / Volume 1 Finale