Time Remaining: 32 Days, 00 Hours. (Status: Summoned to Citadel. Technical Review In Progress.) Location: The Apex Tower - Director Kael's Strategy Room.
The Strategy Room smelled of ozone, floor wax, and stale tobacco.
It was not a throne room; it was a bunker buried in the center of the tower. The walls were lined with banks of clicking relay cabinets and pneumatic tube terminals. There were no windows to offer a view of the empire. The only light came from green-shaded electric lamps hanging over a massive, slate-topped surface in the center of the room.
Arthur stood on one side, wiping grease from his hands with a rag. Director Kael stood on the other. Between them lay the evidence: two strips of graph paper torn from the seismic recorders in Sector 4 and 5.
One strip showed a jagged, violent scrawl that ended in a flat-line drop (Sector 5 Failure). The other showed a smooth, rolling wave (Sector 4 Stabilization).
