The Grand Assembly Hall on the seventieth floor of the Federal Apex Spire smelled of chilled lavender ozone, polished dark wood, and the sharp, metal tang of plain fear.
Outside the aligned geodesic glass dome, dawn broke over the Atlantic in long, bruised ribbons of amber and slate. Below the spire, the sprawling skyline of Mega-City 01 stretched toward the horizon, its forty-two million residents only just awakening to the reality of the midnight tremors that had rattled their foundations. On the circular tiered floor of the plenary chamber, four hundred delegates from the Four Land-wide Alliances sat behind curving consoles of brushed silver-steel. Their faces were pale in the cold morning light.
At the center of the raised speaker’s rostrum stood Senior Vice President Judith Brandt.
Her tailored midnight-blue executive suit was clean, her silver hair pulled back into a severe, stone-built chignon. Behind her stood eight elite ApexBio Praetorian guards clad in high-pressure composite armor. Their magnetic pulse-carbines were held at low-ready. Brandt’s manicured hands rested flat against the rostrum’s biometric lectern, her face a sculpted mask of grave, royal power.
“Distinguished delegates of the Global Coalition,” Brandt’s voice rang through the sound baffles of the dome, amplified by the hall’s public address arrays. “Six hours ago, at zero-two-hundred hours, our world-size defense arrays detected a total ground-shaking destabilization at depth minus-six-thousand meters. Keystone Seven—the deep-rock anchor of our entire land-wide shelf—was subjected to a deliberate, coordinated sabotage attack.”
