Genesis (Man vs Machine #1)

14 | THE GAME HAS CHANGED

All the eyes in the meeting room turned to face Warner as he burst in, panting. 'Sorry,' he breathed. 'I'm here. Update?'

Cress eyed him suspiciously, but turned back around to face the projection on the wall without saying a word. It showed what the minuscule cameras mounted on the Special Unit's earpieces saw – a darkened room with a tall black CPU in its center.

'They've reached the Core. Shot down a couple of Titans on the way. It was amazing.' Alder was beaming, fizzling with energy. A wide grin split his face, and Warner felt his mouth curve upwards to match it. 'Where were you?'

Warner moved closer to the projection, crossing his arms across his chest tightly. 'On an errand for Wayland,' he said, without much further explanation, but Alder seemed satisfied.

Wayland had stopped him on the way back from the hangar to ask for a quick vid-conference with a Gulf representative. It was sudden – Warner hadn't been expecting the conference for a few days at most. But the Emirati cities were under heavy siege, and their President was desperate to get the citizens to a safe location.

Warner hadn't been entirely sure of how to handle the situation, so he'd kept his mouth shut tight into a pleasant smile.

'I'll handle this,' Wayland had assured him before the conference started, patting Warner's hand comfortingly. But when Prime Minister Rasil El-Amin had shown up on screen trying to hide his distraught frown, even Wayland had been thrown off his game. They'd been expecting the representative to be a sergeant or lower. El-Amin's appearance had made Warner suspect things were worse than they'd imagined.

And they were. Dubai's bio-dome, one of the earliest ones built, had malfunctioned, and the Titans were ravaging the city. El-Amin, a pudgy, sanguine man, was trying to hide his fears behind a diplomatic smile and a well-thought-out argument. He promised Wayland the aid of the Gulf's extensive military, and in return they had agreed to send in a fleet of thirteen B-class warships – the military craft with the highest capacity – within the next day. Wayland had promised to oversee the preparations, and barely a moment after Prime Minister El-Amin disconnected, he'd sent Warner away so that he could begin.

A sharp whine emanating from the speakers set into the walls made Warner's attention snap back to the events unfolding on the projection screen. James, breathing heavily, was apprehensively drawing his hand away from the obelisk.

None of them, both in the control room and on the screen, moved a muscle. The air was absolutely still. It dripped with tension. Warner could feel it about to rip.

After an eternity, the whine died down. The room the Special Unit stood in began to come to life, flickering with a thousand different tiny pinpricks of light all over the walls. The stillness morphed into an almost cheerful buzzing, as if the Core's computer was simply waking up after a long nap and stretching.

They were still frozen, watching in awe as holograms flickered on and off. Slid across the walls. Grew larger and then shrunk to nothingness. Finally, everything shut off into a blinding blackness once again.

'Did it...?' began Alder, frowning, but suddenly a projection bloomed over the top of the Core. It showed a rotating dodecahedron glowing bright blue. A block-lettered EMBERT INDUSTRIES snaked its way around the image in languid circles.

It faded away, and pleasant female voice rang out through the speakers. 'Welcome,' it said. Small pricks of blue light bloomed on the ceiling like too-big stars, swirling in figure-eight patterns. Warner watched, mesmerized, as they rearranged themselves back into the dodecahedron.

'Booting. Please wait.' The Core hummed some more. 'Please enter security key.'

Alder fumbled for the mic. 'The scrambler,' he said, his voice blurring in his excitement. He snapped up from his chair, clasping his hands together.