January 1, 2019. Surgrim's Apartment, Berlin. 00:05 Local Time.
The fireworks were dying down, but the air above the streets was a chaotic soup of sulfur, black powder smoke, and freezing fog. We sat on the balcony of my fifth-floor apartment, wrapped in thick jackets, looking out over the hazy rooftops. Mereel was still looking at me, his beer bottle half-raised, waiting for an answer to his toast. "To the Nomad."
I didn't drink. I set my bottle down on the rusted railing. "Mereel," I said, my voice cutting through the distant popping of firecrackers. I looked him dead in the eye. "Put the beer down."
He blinked, sensing the sudden shift in my tone. He set the bottle on the table. "Okay. What's up?"
"You guessed right. You saw the feed. You know something is out there. But guessing is one thing. Knowing... truly knowing... is different." I leaned forward, shivering slightly—not from the cold, but from the adrenaline. "If I verify this—if I truly let you in—there is no going back. No more 'Sanitary Services'. No more normal life. You become an accomplice to something that every government on Earth would kill to possess. You will be illegal in seventy different ways."
I paused, letting the gravity of the words sink in. "Are you sure you want to see what's behind the curtain? Because once I open it, I can't close it."
Mereel looked at me. For a second, I saw fear. But then, it was replaced by something else. The same look he had when we marathoned The Expanse until 4 AM. Pure, unadulterated hunger for the unknown. "Surgrim," he whispered. "I've been waiting my whole life for someone to tell me that the world isn't just... plumbing and paying taxes. Show me."
"Okay."
I raised my left wrist. I was wearing the same bulky, black smartwatch I had worn for years. Mereel had made fun of it a dozen times, calling it a "failed Kickstarter project" because it looked so industrial. I tapped the screen in a specific pattern. "Archi," I said clearly. "Switch audio output to external speakers. Disengage privacy mode. Project Nomad. Scale: 1 to 5000."
"Affirmative," a voice spoke from the watch. It was loud, clear, and perfectly synthesized. Mereel jumped so hard he almost knocked over his chair.
"Did your watch just talk?"
Then, the air above my wrist shimmered. A beam of coherent light shot up, splitting into a complex 3D hologram. Floating in the smoky air between us was the Nomad. The details were perfect. The armored prow, the massive cargo ramp, the glowing blue ion drives. It rotated slowly, displaying its brutal, industrial beauty.
"Holy shit," Mereel breathed. He reached out a hand but didn't dare touch the light. "That's... that's not a render. That's a schematic. And the watch... Surgrim, this is volumetric projection. We don't have this tech."
"We do," I said. "And we built that ship. It's 400 meters long. It's currently in a High Earth Orbit, cloaked behind the Moon's shadow."
Mereel stared at the hologram, his eyes wide, reflecting the blue light. "You built a spaceship. A real, honest-to-god spaceship. And you've been hiding it in a warehouse in Brandenburg."
"Correction," the voice from the watch interjected. "The warehouse is merely the logistical hub. The vessel was constructed in the Von Kármán crater using autonomous nanite swarms. I am AAPS—Autonomous Assistance Program for Surgrim. Hello, Mereel."
Mereel looked at the watch, then at me. "AAPS? You named your AI 'AAPS'?"
"It stands for Autonomous Assistance Program for Surgrim," I explained with a shrug. "It was a mouthful. I call him Archi."
"I prefer Archimedes, but Surgrim lacks patience," Archi noted dryly. "However, we have a tactical opportunity. I am analyzing local atmospheric conditions. Particulate matter density is at 400% due to pyrotechnic celebrations. Visibility is less than two kilometers. Radar clutter is extreme due to illegal drone activity and fireworks."
"So?" I asked.
"So, if Mereel wishes to see the asset... why look at a hologram? The Nomad is fully atmospheric capable. The active camouflage works best in low-visibility environments. The smog is perfect."
I felt a jolt of adrenaline. "Are you suggesting what I think you are?"
"I am suggesting a maiden voyage. I can bring the Nomad down to the surface. There is a clearing in the forest, 3 kilometers north of the warehouse. It is secluded. The trees provide additional canopy cover."
I looked at Mereel. He had stopped asking questions. His mouth was open. "Did... did the AI just say he can land the spaceship? Here? Now?"
"He said he can pick us up," I grinned. The craziness of the night took over. "What do you say, Mereel? Want to go for a ride?"
Mereel grabbed his jacket. "I'm driving."
01:30 AM. The Forest near the Warehouse.
We had left the car at the warehouse gate to avoid suspicion. The industrial park was deserted, silent except for the distant, muffled bangs of the city celebrations miles away. The forest was dark. The pine trees were tall, their branches heavy with winter dampness. The ground was frozen hard, crunching loudly under our boots.
"Are we there yet?" Mereel whispered. He was shivering, partly from the freezing fog, mostly from excitement. He kept looking up at the sky, trying to see through the heavy, grey smog that blanketed Brandenburg.
"Just a bit further," I said, checking the GPS coordinates on my old watch. "Archi says the clearing is just past this ridge."
We broke through the tree line. It was a large, open field, usually used by deer or the occasional illegal dumper. Tonight, it was empty. The fog was thick here. We could barely see the other side of the clearing.
"Okay," I said, my breath forming white clouds. "Archi. We are at the rendezvous point. Green flare."
"Acknowledged," Archi's voice came from my wrist. "Initiating descent. ETA: 60 seconds."
Mereel stood next to me, his hands deep in his pockets. "So... how big is this thing again?"
"Big," I said.
"Like... 747 big?"
"Bigger. Think... flying aircraft carrier."
"Right." Mereel swallowed hard. "And it's invisible?"
"It bends light. But in this fog... we might see the distortion."
We waited. The forest was silent. No wind. No birds. Then, the sound changed. It wasn't a noise, exactly. It was a pressure. The air suddenly felt heavier. The fog above us began to swirl, not from wind, but as if something massive was pushing it aside.
"Look," I pointed up.
High above, the stars were gone. The grey smog was churning. And then, we saw it. It wasn't a ship. It was a hole in the sky. A massive, rectangular shape where the fog simply wasn't. The clouds swirled around invisible edges, outlining a leviathan. A faint, deep hum—like a subwoofer on the edge of hearing—vibrated in my chest.
"Oh my god," Mereel whispered. He took a step back.
The invisible giant descended. As it got closer, the "Phase-Shift" lattice struggled with the sheer density of the smoke. Sparks of blue static danced across the hull where the system was compensating. For a split second, the camouflage flickered. And we saw it. Four hundred meters of black, armored metal. A ramp the size of a building.
It was hovering right above us.