The world was a chessboard of smoldering conflicts, and the players were all moving their pieces in the dark, unaware that a new, larger hand was about to sweep the board clean.
Shanghai, EAC Awakened Base
The interrogation room was a silent, white void. Behind a one-way mirror, Lin Feng stood beside Mei-Ling, watching the man on the other side. Jack Wilson sat at the steel table, looking bruised, exhausted, but his eyes were sharp, analytical, and utterly defiant.
"His story is insane," Mei-Ling said, her arms crossed, her voice a low murmur. "A secret project, a pilot's mind used as a wetware component, a director who orchestrates massacres... It sounds like a conspiracy holo-film."
"Does it?" Lin Feng replied, his voice flat. He had seen the cold, efficient brutality of the Alliance's machines. He had felt the impossible power of the Titan. Jack's story, as insane as it sounded, was the only thing that made sense of the monster he had fought. It was a truth that resonated with the scars on his own soul. "He says he knows how to kill them. Not just one, but all of them. He says he has proof."
Mei-Ling was about to argue, to speak of protocol and the danger of trusting a traitor from an enemy nation, when a red alert light began to flash on the wall console. A Priority Omega message. The highest possible level of alert.
Giza, The Deep Tomb
Amira Khan was thrown from her connection with the High Priest, landing hard on the cold stone floor, a gasp tearing from her lungs. She was not just tired; she felt as though she had run a thousand miles. Her team rushed to her side, but she waved them away, her eyes wide with a terror that was deeper than anything she had ever known.
The vision had been so clear. A city of light and glass, a tapestry of a million lives, a perfect, ripe fruit hanging in the darkness. Tokyo.
"It wasn't a raid," she whispered, her voice trembling. "South Africa... it was a test. A taste."
She looked at the Colonel, her eyes locking onto his. "They're coming back. Not for a mine. Not for a resource. They're coming for a harvest. The main fleet."
"When?" the Colonel asked, his face grim.
"Three months," Amira said, the words feeling like a death sentence on her tongue. "Not a day more. Their target is Tokyo."
UN Security Council (Virtual)
Director Thorne's calm, predatory argument was being met with a wall of furious denial from the other world leaders. "Your 'unified command' is a thinly veiled attempt at a global dictatorship, Thorne!" the Chinese representative was roaring.
It was in the middle of this chaotic, political brawl that the message arrived. A single, Priority Omega data packet, sent from a sanctioned Egyptian military channel, overriding all other protocols. It was patched through to every leader simultaneously.
Amira's face, pale and grim, appeared on the main screen. Her voice, amplified and imbued with the chilling certainty of a prophet, delivered the news. The target. The timeline. The harvest.
The shouting in the virtual chamber died. It was replaced by a stunned, absolute silence. The squabbling of the world's most powerful men was rendered instantly, pathetically insignificant.
In Nevada, Thorne watched the broadcast in his private office. A slow, cold smile touched his lips. "It seems," he murmured to the empty room, "they need a shepherd after all."
In the Arctic, Ivan Petrov received the alert on the Polar Wall. He looked from the message to the classified file on his screen labeled ZIMA'S HEART, the weight of his terrible, secret choice growing heavier.
In Shanghai, Director Chen and Mei-Ling stared at the alert, then looked at each other, and then through the one-way mirror at the American scientist. The political game was over. The rules had just been erased. Survival was the only thing that mattered.
"Get him out of there," Chen commanded, his voice a low, urgent whisper. "Take him to Lin Feng. Give him whatever he needs."
Lin Feng did not wait. He turned from the window and walked towards the interrogation room door. He was a soldier, a warrior who had been betrayed by his own side, now confronted with a traitor from the enemy. He had the secret to the last war sitting in a chair, while the news of a new, unwinnable war was screaming in his ear.
The war for the desert was over. The battle for the world was about to begin.