Chapter 54 - The Continental Tremor
The global financial and industrial grid was coming undone at the seams.
Following the atmospheric crash of the dreadnought, reports flooded the news networks of bizarre seismic anomalies across seven continents. Deep beneath the crust, dormant facilities established prior to modern history were coming online in response to the deactivation of the dreadnought’s cores.
In New York, trading algorithms went completely haywire as financial protocols began rerouting trillions of dollars into untraceable, century-old ghost trusts. In Tokyo, power grids flickered and synchronized their output with an unmapped subterranean frequency.
Inside the deep-sea Genesis Spire, the airlock drained with a deafening roar of venting steam and rushing seawater.
The blast doors of the bridge capsule were sheared open with mechanical ease. Mateo and Marcos stepped out onto a vast metallic platform suspended over a bottomless subterranean chasm. Towering around them were pillars of pure monolithic crystal, intertwined with supercomputer processing nodes that made modern supercomputers look like abacuses.
Waiting on the platform was a contingent of silent, armed sentries in obsidian armor, flanked by an array of holographic projections depicting the shifting tectonic plates of Earth.
"Welcome to the Genesis Spire, young masters," a robotic synthetic voice droned from the ceiling. "Your arrival has triggered the primary alignment sequence. Time to total planetary synchronization: three hours, forty-two minutes."
Marcos glanced at Mateo, his mind already calculating the architecture of the facility. "This isn't an Apex Dynamics facility. This is older. Much older."
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"Apex was merely a civilian front created by the Miller dynasty to mine modern resources for this installation," Mateo deduced calmly, stepping forward without a flinch despite the dozens of assault rifles trained on them. "Cassian Cross was just an overseer tasked with keeping the system in stasis until the proper generational intellect emerged."
Mateo looked directly into the primary surveillance node high above the platform. "Isn't that right, Grandfather?"
