The lights in the Pentagon's Deep Cell didn't flicker. They pulsed—like a slow, mechanical heartbeat.
Concrete walls lined with lead. Air scrubbed to surgical sterility. No windows. No clocks. Time here was measured in threat levels, not minutes.
General Helen Cho stood at the center of the War Room, arms crossed, staring at the main screen. It showed Luna's temporal storm over Silver Creek—not live footage, but reconstructed from satellite glitches, drone fragments, and panicked civilian reports. Trees aging to dust. Cars driving backward through time. A child vanishing into thin air like smoke.
"Tell me again," she said, voice low, "why we're not already launching."
Across the table, Admiral Ruiz rubbed his temples. "Because we don't know if nukes even work on them, Helen. Last test in '38 vaporized a bloodline elder—and he reassembled three days later in Reykjavik, pissed off and quoting Dante."
