The official announcements spoke of peace. The cameras showed leaders smiling, pens hovering over treaties, handshakes framed in ornate rooms. But behind those smiles, every delegate carried the same grim dossier: the anomaly. The thing no one wanted to name in front of the public.
The Geneva summit was only the first. Others followed in quick succession, Zurich, Astana, Istanbul, each described to the world as "regional stabilization conferences." In truth, they were crisis councils where equations mattered more than speeches.
The delegates knew war was now a secondary theater. Armies could still march, tanks could still fire, sanctions could still cripple markets. But none of it would matter if the black line in the sky reached them.
