The war room smells of stale coffee, gun oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of fear.
I stand at the head of the holographic table, my hands resting on the cold steel edge. My fingers are heavily bandaged, the nerve damage from the Mariana Trench frostbite sending a constant, dull ache up my forearms. I ignore it. My focus is entirely on the map.
Hundreds of tiny, red dots are blinking across the globe.
"Forty-eight hours," Morgan says, her voice tight, carrying the clipped, clinical tone of a scientist delivering a fatal diagnosis. She taps a key, and the holographic projection zooms in on the North American continent. The red dots are converging on the Pacific Northwest. "Based on their travel speed and the density of the programmable matter in their blood, the vanguard will breach our
