Day 435. 07:30 hours.
Olympus.
Ground floor
The kitchen.
Jennifer was at the kitchen counter with leftover rice in the bowl, garlic cloves on the board, eggs in the pan, and cheese open on the plate.
The icy-blue hair was tied back with a ribbon Hua had given her.
The particular focus of a woman who was hungry at half past seven in the morning, had come down the stairs to cook, because the hunger had woken her, the man was gone, the war was on, and the only thing the body knew how to do was eat.
The eight trails had streaked south forty minutes ago.
Jennifer had watched from the window until the trails were gone, the sky was charcoal, the snow was ticking against the glass, and then the hunger had come, the real hunger, the kind that did not ask but put the body in motion.
Jennifer had pulled on a robe, padded down the stairs, cracked eggs into a bowl, grated the quick-melt cheese, minced the garlic, and started the rice in the pan because a cheesy omelet and garlic-fried rice was what the body wanted.
The rice sizzled in the garlic oil.
The smell was sharp and warm, the smell of sinangag at half past seven in a kitchen where the man was gone, the wives were still sleeping upstairs, and the babies were breathing in their cribs.
Then the nausea hit.
Not the gentle kind.
The fist.
The kind that came from the bottom of her stomach, and hit the back of her throat without warning and did not give her body time to find the bathroom.
Jennifer dropped the spatula.
The garlic rice scorched.
Jennifer's hand found the counter's edge and Jennifer's body bent over the kitchen sink.
The vomit came violently, body rejecting everything, the half-cup of coffee, the water, the air, even the garlic smell that had been appetizing thirty seconds ago and was now a fist in the back of her throat.
The waves came one after the other, each worse than the last, her stomach convulsing even when there was nothing left to bring up.
Alessia was in the kitchen doorway in two strides, the doctor crossing the kitchen and gathering Jennifer's hair in one hand while pressing the other on Jennifer's back with the particular clinical attention of a doctor who was seeing something she had not expected.
"The escalation rate. The hiccups. The crying. The begging. That is not agency. That is hCG. That is a pregnancy. I missed it." Alessia realized, the Life Sense reaching through her palm into Jennifer's body, searching for the signature, feeling for a life.
Jennifer vomited again, the convulsion violent, the sound echoing in the kitchen, the sound that Alessia knew meant the body was pregnant, the body was fighting the pregnancy and the pregnancy was winning.
"Jennifer." Alessia's voice was clinical and steady, the voice that did not panic. "How long have you been vomiting?"
"Just now." Jennifer's voice was raw, the throat burned.
"Before that." Alessia pressed, her hand steady on Jennifer's back. "The nausea. The sensitivity. The emotional volatility. How long?"
Jennifer's blue eyes, wet and red, found Alessia's face. "The emotions. The possessiveness. The clingy. I thought it was the truth. I thought the agency..."
"The truth gave you agency." Alessia's voice was clinical, the doctor measuring. "But the escalation. The rate. The hiccups. The crying. The begging. That is not agency. That is hormones."
"I'm pregnant?" Jennifer's voice was barely a whisper.
Alessia's hand was on Jennifer's belly, the Life Sense reaching, the fundamental searching for the signature of a life.
"Yes." Alessia confirmed, her voice certain. "You're pregnant. The hCG is driving the emotional volatility. The nausea. The escalation. It's not just the truth. It's a baby."
Jennifer's face crumbled again, the lip and the chin and the eyes, the crumble that was not the fear of Jae-min leaving but the fear of a baby whose father was flying to war.
"He doesn't know." Jennifer's voice was a whisper. "He left. He doesn't know. I didn't know. He said I love you and he left and I didn't know I was pregnant."
"He doesn't know." Alessia confirmed. "We'll tell him after the mission. After Mindanao. When he comes back."
"When he comes back." Jennifer's voice was the beg again, not the sex beg but the beg of a woman who was pregnant and whose baby's father was at war. "He will come back. He promised."
Alessia held Jennifer on the kitchen floor, the Life Sense humming between them, Alessia feeling Jennifer's body, feeling the baby, feeling the particular signature of a life that was three weeks old and was already driving its mother to violent morning sickness.
The seventeenth.
Jennifer's baby would be the seventeenth.
Jae-min's child, conceived on the night the truth broke the story, in the warmth, in the bed where Jennifer had been told the cafeteria was pity and the bunker was love.
Hua appeared in the doorway, Eun-hae in the sling, thirty-nine days old.
Hua's violet-blue eyes found Jennifer on the kitchen floor and Hua's expression shifted from concern to recognition in the space of a heartbeat.
Hua did not speak.
Hua crossed the kitchen, wet a cloth, and pressed it to Jennifer's forehead.
The cool wet cloth on a sweating forehead, the gesture of a woman who had been pregnant and who knew what morning sickness felt like.
Three women in the kitchen.
The doctor, the chef, the telepath. One pregnant with the sixteenth. One pregnant with the seventeenth. One who had died and come back.
Elaine stirred on the kitchen bench by the long window, the spy who had taken the ground-floor watch shift the night before. Elaine's flat eyes found the three women on the kitchen floor. Elaine did not speak, but Elaine's threat-detector brain calculated and filed.
"Pregnant. The escalation. The hCG. I saw it coming. I didn't name it because naming it would have been a distraction before the war." Elaine observed, her flat eyes moving from Jennifer to Alessia.
Elaine's hand found Alessia's arm, the spy's hand on the fundamental's arm, the touch that was not comfort but confirmation.
Alessia's black eyes met Elaine's. The look that lasted half a second and carried an entire conversation.
After the war. After Mindanao. After the Jae-min comes back.
Elaine nodded. Alessia nodded. The two women who saw everything, going back to holding.
— • • • —
Day 435. 07:00 hours.
Simultaneous.
Five hundred kilometers south.
Above the frozen jungle of Mindanao.
Eight frames in formation, eight plasma trails in the charcoal sky, the frozen jungle below with its canopy white with snow and the mountains dark and the facility somewhere below, hidden in the jungle.
The HUD in Jae-min's cockpit showed the approach: three hundred kilometers to the facility, two hundred, one hundred, the ARTEMIS thermal imaging sweeping the terrain below and reading the signatures.
Twenty thousand soldiers. Five thousand seven hundred Enhanced. The facility. The children.
And the V2.
Seventeen permanent composites somewhere in the facility, one hundred Enhanced fused, the composites that could not be burned or crushed or cut, the composites that only the void could kill.
[Mei]: "Formation, this is Command." Mei announced through the comms, ZEUS routing the signal from five hundred kilometers north. "ARTEMIS shows the facility at bearing one-eight-seven, range eighty kilometers. Perimeter garrison reinforced. Twenty thousand soldiers. Five thousand seven hundred Enhanced."
"Copy." Jae-min confirmed, his dark eyes on the HUD. "Phase one complete. In range. Phase two begins on my command."
"All frames, transform to knight mode. Prepare for descent." Jae-min commanded.
The eight frames shifted simultaneously, the HERACLES shift, plane to knight, wings folding and limbs extending and bodies rising as eight twenty-five-foot knights descended from the charcoal sky toward the frozen jungle.
The ionic plasma thrusters adjusting to hover mode. The formation tightening. The fist closing.
The thermal imaging on Jae-min's HUD resolved the facility in detail as the frames descended.
Six blocks, three breached from the first raid and patched with alloy, three intact.
The production line running through the center.
The children's wing on the east side.
The extraction wing on the west.
The composite deployment wing at the north.
The signatures pulsed on the thermal imaging. Twenty thousand soldiers mobilizing. Five thousand seven hundred Enhanced activating.
Anti-air systems tracking the eight frames. And somewhere in the composite deployment wing, the seventeen V2 units were stirring.
Jae-min's void felt them, the seventeen signatures that burned brightest, the composites, the one hundred Enhanced fused into seventeen permanent bodies powered by two hundred and four consumed children.
"They are stirring. The kill frequency is already radiating from the portal. The composites are feeling it. The feeling of a permanent composite discovering that permanence has a weakness. They are afraid." Jae-min catalogued, the void pulsing, the regressor stirring beneath the captain. "Good. The man who was eaten alive, feeling the fear of the things that eat children."
Jae-min's void swept deeper into the facility, past the perimeter, past the garrison, past the blocks, into the extraction wing where the children were on the tables.
The small signatures.
The ones being processed right now.
The ones whose gamma was being extracted right now.
The ones who were dying right now.
Jae-min's jaw tightened, the teeth holding the regressor, the captain in command and the regressor underneath looking at the children on the tables and remembering being on a table, not this table but a hallway, a floor, the neighbors, the eating, the first timeline.
"The extraction wing." Jae-min's voice was low, controlled, the captain holding the regressor behind the teeth. "I see the extraction wing. Children on the tables. Three. Three children on the tables right now. Being processed."
The comms went very quiet.
[SAMURAI]: "Captain." Mark Jordan's voice was careful from the SAMURAI. "If we fire now, the frequency radiates from the portal. The frequency reaches the extraction wing. The frequency collapses the gamma in the machines. The machines stop."
"The extraction has started." Jae-min's voice was flat. "The gamma is being pulled. If the frequency hits the extraction wing while the gamma is being pulled, the frequency collapses the gamma in the machines. The extraction stops."
Jae-min paused, the void pulsing, the regressor pressing against the teeth. "The three children might survive. If the frequency stops the extraction before the gamma is fully pulled. If we fire now."
[SAMURAI]: "Fire now." Mark Jordan urged, his voice steady. "The three children. The seventeen V2. The two thousand seven hundred and ninety-six. Fire now."
"Team." Jae-min's voice shifted to the command. "Phase two. Now. The void opens the portal. ARTEMIS fires. The frequency collapses the V2. And the frequency stops the extraction. On my command."
[GENESIS]: "The children first. The V2 dies. The extraction stops. The children come out. Nothing else matters." Jae-min's voice can be heard from the other frames comms.
"Roger." Seven voices confirmed. One nod from the woman in white.
In the ASSASSIN cockpit, Yue felt the nausea sit in the back of her throat, the mild kind, the kind a swordswoman could ignore.
Yue was pregnant, had been for weeks, and had not told anyone because the swordswoman did not do announcements.
Yue had filed the pregnancy under not relevant, had continued training, continued fighting, and continued being the sword.
"Not relevant. The facility is below. The children are below. The nausea is nothing." Yue held, swallowing the nausea, the marble eyes on the HUD, the jian on the hip, the facility below.
In the SONIC cockpit, Gabriel felt the nausea too, the mild kind, the kind a flyer could file under not now.
Gabriel was pregnant, had been for a few weeks, and had not told anyone because the flyer had been busy with the SONIC frame, the fire test, the kill confirmation, and the launch and the war.
"Not now. The children are below. The wind cage is humming. The nausea is later." Gabriel swallowed, the gold eyes on the HUD, the facility below.
Two women in two frames.
Two pregnancies.
Two morning sicknesses swallowed and filed and ignored because the war was now and the children were dying and the pregnancies were later.
The woman in white's green eyes tracked the GENESIS ahead through the gap in the balaclava.
"He is about to fire. He is about to save the children. The wall holds. The wall always holds. Even here. Even over Mindanao." The woman in white catalogued, her hands steady on the SPECTER's grips, the regeneration humming, the dual katanas ready.
[GENESIS]: "Satellite Link activating." Jae-min announced through the comms. "Portal opening. Extending to ARTEMIS."
The void pushed upward through the atmosphere and the charcoal sky and the snow, four hundred kilometers to ARTEMIS in low orbit.
The familiar reach.
The strain that was not physical but spatial.
[Lena]: "Portal extension at fifty kilometers." Lena's voice relayed through the comms from the GENESIS interface. "Stable. Frequency constant. One hundred. Two hundred. Three hundred. Four hundred. Connection to ARTEMIS established."
[SAMURAI]: "Drift?" Mark Jordan questioned from the SAMURAI.
[Paolo]: "Point two five percent." Paolo's voice came from the workshop at Olympus, five hundred kilometers north, where they were tracking the telemetry. "Within tolerance. Clean."
"Connection confirmed." Jae-min declared, his dark eyes on the HUD. "ARTEMIS is linked. The portal is open. The frequency is live. The kill frequency is radiating from the portal over the facility."
[SAMURAI]: "They see us." Mark Jordan reported from the SAMURAI, his amber eyes on the perimeter. "Anti-air tracking. Two minutes before they fire."
"Two minutes is enough." Jae-min replied, his voice steady. "The Satellite Link fires before their anti-air reaches us. The frequency collapses the V2 before their soldiers reach the blocks."
[Mei]: "ARTEMIS is go." Mei confirmed from the Command Deck. "Platform nominal. Cannon charged at one hundred percent. Targeting locked. On your command, Captain."
"His voice on the comms. The command voice. The way he said 'on my command.' File it. Permanent." Mei catalogued, her pulse climbing, Chocho in her lap.
Jae-min's finger on the trigger. The facility below. The V2 below. The children below. Three on the tables dying right now.
Two thousand seven hundred and ninety-six in the blocks waiting. Seventeen composites stirring. Twenty thousand soldiers mobilizing. The two minutes almost gone.
"The victim becomes the weapon. The eaten becomes the killer. The consumed becomes the savior." Jae-min filed, the void pulsing, the regressor, the captain, and the father who didn't know he was a father again, all three in the same chest, all three pulling the same trigger.
"Fire." Jae-min commanded.
The trigger pulled.
The command routed through the GENESIS, the void anchor, and the portal, up the four-hundred-kilometer corridor to ARTEMIS in low orbit.
The Ion Particle Cannon fired at full power, 1.2 terawatts.
The beam entered the portal in orbit as a shaft of white-blue light so intense it registered on every thermal imaging system in the compound five hundred kilometers north.
The beam traveled down the four hundred kilometers of void-extended space and exited the portal at the target, the composite deployment wing.
The wing detonated.
The alloy walls vaporized.
The seventeen V2 composites felt the beam, felt the frequency, and felt the gamma collapsing inside them, the permanent bodies discovering that permanence was a lie.
The kill frequency radiated from the portal in all directions, the spatial distortion reaching the extraction wing, reaching the machines, reaching the three children on the tables.
The gamma in the machines collapsed.
The machines stopped.
The extraction stopped.
"Beam impact confirmed." Mei's voice came through the comms, tight and clinical. "Composite deployment wing destroyed. V2 gamma signatures collapsing. All seventeen composites showing gamma collapse."
"Extraction wing." Jae-min pressed, his voice low. "The three children. Status."
Mei paused, her fingers on the keyboard, the ARTEMIS thermal imaging resolving the extraction wing.
"Extraction machines stopped." Mei confirmed, her voice carrying the steadiness of a woman reading data that meant children were alive. "Gamma extraction halted. The three children on the tables are showing vital signatures. They are alive."
"Phase three." Jae-min commanded, his voice shifting to the captain. "Frames breach the facility. The coalition extracts the children. All of them. Now."
The eight frames descended through the charcoal sky toward the frozen jungle, toward the facility, toward the children.
The war had begun.
The V2 was dying.
The children were alive.
And the void hummed.