The War Room was the brain of the Corvini organism. It was a windowless chamber three levels below the ground, dominated by a massive, illuminated glass table that displayed a live schematic of the city. Red lights pulsed in the Corvini districts; blue lights marked the encroachment of the coalition.
The blue was swallowing the red.
John Corvini stood at the head of the table. He was perfectly groomed, his suit pressed, his face showing none of the strain that had fractured Sam or the mania that had consumed Kevin. He looked like a CEO reviewing a quarterly downturn, not a warlord facing extinction.
The five recruits stood on the other side of the table. They were exhausted, still wearing the clothes from the precinct, the smell of fear and stale coffee clinging to them.
"We have lost the outer perimeter," John said. He touched the glass surface, and a section of the docks turned blue. "Vargo's trucks are blocking the supply routes. The Russians have cut the fiber lines to the financial sector. Chen has mobilized the Triad foot soldiers to swarm the lowincome housing blocks, denying us our usual recruitment pools."
He looked up. His eyes were clear, unclouded by panic.
"It is a formidable display of force," John admitted. "Quantitatively, they outnumber us ten to one."
Gautham made a small, choking sound. He was staring at the sea of blue lights, his mind doing the math of their survival and coming up with zero.
John ignored the sound. He swiped his hand across the table, zooming in on the central district, the Corvini stronghold.
"However," John said, his voice smooth and assured. "An army built in an hour is not an army. It is a mob."
He looked at Pranav.
"You believe Marco Reyes is a martyr, Pranav? You believe he is a force of nature?"
Pranav stiffened. He hadn't spoken his theory aloud to John, but he knew the compound was wired. They heard everything.
"Yes, sir," Pranav said, keeping his voice steady. "He has nothing to lose. That makes him dangerous."
John smiled. It was a faint, patronizing curve of the lips.
"He has nothing to lose," John corrected, "which means he has nothing to protect. That makes him reckless."
John walked around the table, his fingertips trailing over the illuminated city grid.
"Marco leads with emotion," John stated, stopping behind Arpika. "His alliance is a bond of grief. Grief is powerful, but it is not precise. Find the seams. Pull the threads."
He placed a hand on the table, spreading his fingers.
"They are attacking everywhere at once because they are angry. We will attack specific points because we are disciplined. We will dismantle this coalition not by fighting the wave, but by breaking the dam that holds it."
He turned to the recruits. The assignments came fast, tailored to the specific, flawed talents Asrit had cataloged.
"Sanvi."
Sanvi snapped to attention. Her knuckles were bruised, her eyes hard.
"Vargo has established a forward command post at the West Side transport hub. It is heavily guarded, loud, and chaotic. You will take a strike team of six men. Hit it. Do not hold it. Break the equipment, burn the fuel reserves, and leave. You are the distraction. Draw their anger."
Sanvi nodded, a flicker of dark satisfaction crossing her face. "Loud. I can do loud."
"Gautham."
Gautham flinched as his name was called.
"The Russians are coordinating the alliance's communications through a encrypted server farm in the basement of a laundromat on 4th Street. It is their nervous system. You will infiltrate. You will not destroy it. You will plant a loop in their routing software that delays their orders by three minutes. Confusion is more effective than silence."
Gautham swallowed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Infiltrate. Just... go in? Me?"
"You have the codes," John said simply. "Do not get caught."
"Arpika."
Arpika stood straighter, though the bruise on her cheek was a stark reminder of her last "initiative."
"Vargo's lieutenant, a man named Silas, is wavering. He is a businessman, not a crusader. He is terrified of Marco's instability. You will meet him. You will not seduce him. You will explain to him the actuarial reality of fighting the Corvini. Turn him. We need eyes inside the room."
Arpika hesitated. "Sir, after the penthouse... my face is known."
"Your face is a reminder of consequence," John said coldly. "Use it."
"Sathwik."
Sathwik didn't move. He just looked at John.
"The South Bridge is the only route for their heavy reinforcements. You will take a heavy weapons team. You will hold that bridge. No one crosses. If they try, you turn the bridge into a graveyard."
Sathwik nodded once. Simple. Absolute.
Finally, John turned to Pranav.
"Pranav."
Pranav felt the weight of the room settle on him. He felt the fraudulence of his own ambition. Kevin had called him rust. Asrit had called him a liability.
"You see structures," John said. "You see how things connect."
John tapped the center of the map, where a single, blinking red light sat isolated in a sea of blue.
"This is the power grid for the industrial district where Marco is hiding. It is an old system. Fragile. If that grid goes down, their security systems fail. Their heat fails. Their light fails. They will be fighting in the dark."
John looked Pranav in the eye.
"You will sabotage the substation. You will plunge them into the dark. And when they are blind, Vikram and I will end this."
Pranav looked at the map. It was a suicide mission. The substation would be the most guarded asset in the sector.
"You want me to turn out the lights," Pranav said quietly.
"I want you to provide the environment for our victory," John replied.
John stepped back, surveying his pieces. He looked confident. He looked like a man who had already won the game because he was the only one playing by the rules of logic.
"Marco thinks he is fighting a war of retribution," John said, buttoning his jacket. "He forgets that wars are won by logistics, not tears. Go. Execute."
John turned and walked out of the War Room, leaving the recruits alone with the glowing map.
The silence that followed wasn't the fearful silence of the cells. It was the heavy, suffocating silence of men and women who knew they were being sent into a meat grinder by a general who didn't understand the enemy.
Sanvi looked at the map, then at her hands. "He thinks they're just... unorganized. He thinks they're sloppy."
"He thinks grief is a weakness," Arpika whispered, touching her bruise. "He doesn't understand."
Pranav stared at the substation on the map. He saw the logic. It was a perfect, clinical Corvini plan. Isolate the enemy. Disrupt communications. Create confusion. Strike the head.
But he remembered Marco's face on the news. He remembered the plastic teacup.
John was playing chess against a man who had set the board on fire.
"It doesn't matter what he understands," Pranav said, turning to the door. "We have our orders. We're the threads he's pulling."
He looked at his crew. They were broken, terrified, and owned. But they were also the only thing standing between the Corvini arrogance and total annihilation.
"Let's go," Pranav said, his voice hollow. "Before the fire gets here."