Day 82 Post-Impact
The Causeway had seen better days.
Sarnav stood at the edge of what had once been the busiest land crossing in Southeast Asia. The bridge stretched across the Johor Strait like a broken spine, chunks of concrete missing where explosions or monster attacks had carved away sections. Abandoned vehicles formed a rusted maze across both lanes. In the pre-dawn darkness, it looked like a graveyard for the old world.
"Structural integrity is questionable," Jade reported, her tablet casting pale light across her face. "I'm reading at least three major fracture points. The northern section near the checkpoint collapsed completely."
"Can we cross?" Sarnav asked.
"On foot, carefully, yes. Vehicles, no."
Beside him, Serena stared across the water toward Singapore. Her homeland. Her brother. Through the network, he felt her anxiety warring with her analytical nature, probability calculations running beneath the surface of her thoughts.
"Wei Ming's position is twelve kilometers from the crossing point," she said, voice steady despite her emotions. "Through territory controlled by the New Order. They have patrols, checkpoints, converted creatures."
"Converted?" Zara's voice was sharp. She'd insisted on coming despite the international complications. Or maybe because of them. "Like the Ascendancy uses?"
"Similar process. Different faction, same corruption." Serena pulled up a map on her tablet. "The New Order split from the legitimate government two weeks after impact. Their leader, who calls himself the Sovereign, discovered a method for binding dimensional energy to human hosts. It's not as refined as what the Ascendancy does, but the results are... comparable."
"Monsters wearing human faces," Ishani said flatly. She checked her weapons for the third time. Light manipulation made her dangerous in direct combat, but she'd also armed herself with conventional weapons. Belt of knives. Compact crossbow. A machete that had seen heavy use.
"The converted retain some intelligence," Serena continued. "They can follow orders, use tactics. But they're not... people anymore. The binding process destroys whatever made them human."
"Then we don't hesitate." Sarnav looked at his strike team. Four women, each dangerous in her own way. Ishani for direct combat. Jade for tech and information warfare. Serena for probability manipulation and local knowledge. And Zara, with her military training, weapon summoning, and something to prove.
"Rules of engagement," he said. "Converted are hostile, no exceptions. New Order forces are enemies unless they surrender. Civilians are protected. Our primary objective is reaching Wei Ming's position and extracting his people. Secondary objective is establishing a permanent Singapore presence."
"And the New Order's leadership?" Zara asked.
"If we encounter the Sovereign, we eliminate him. But we don't go hunting. This is a rescue mission, not an invasion."
Jade snorted. "Yet."
"Yet," Sarnav agreed.
The first light of dawn painted the eastern sky in shades of orange and red. Across the strait, Singapore's skyline was visible, damaged but standing. The Marina Bay Sands had lost one of its towers. The Merlion was a distant silhouette, still intact. Somewhere in that urban maze, two hundred people were waiting for rescue.
"Move out."
The Causeway crossing took forty minutes of careful navigation.
Jade led, her digital manipulation ability letting her sense electronic signatures ahead. Active systems, surveillance equipment, anything that might detect them. The New Order had set up monitoring stations at intervals, but most were damaged or offline. The ones that weren't, she disabled remotely.
"Their tech infrastructure is degraded," she reported as they picked their way around a collapsed section. "Either they don't have the expertise to maintain it, or they've prioritized other resources."
"Converted don't need surveillance," Serena said. "They can sense living essence directly. The monitoring stations are probably holdovers from before the faction split."
"Can they sense us now?"
Serena closed her eyes, her probability sense reaching out. "There are... presences ahead. Multiple. But distant. We're not in their detection range yet."
They reached the Singapore side as the sun crested the horizon. The old immigration checkpoint was a burned-out shell, its distinctive architecture reduced to blackened concrete and twisted metal. Bodies, long dead, lay where they'd fallen during whatever battle had raged here in the early days.
Zara surveyed the destruction with a soldier's eye. "This wasn't monsters. This was people killing people."
"The faction wars started within the first week," Serena confirmed. "The government tried to maintain order, but when the Sovereign made his move, things fell apart quickly. This checkpoint was one of the first battlegrounds."
"Your family was caught in this?"
"My parents didn't make it past Day Three." Her voice was flat, controlled. "Wei Ming was on base when everything happened. Military discipline kept his unit together when everything else collapsed."
Sarnav moved to her side, letting his presence anchor her through the network. She leaned into it without looking at him, drawing strength from the connection.
"We'll get him out," he said quietly.
"I know." She straightened, professional mask sliding back into place. "Probability of successful extraction with current team composition: 73.2%. Those are good odds."
"We'll make them better."
The route to NUS campus took them through what had once been suburban residential areas.
The damage here was different from KL. Less widespread destruction, more targeted violence. Houses stood intact next to others that had been burned to the ground. Streets were clear in some sections, blocked with makeshift barricades in others. The pattern spoke of a war fought block by block, faction against faction, neighbor against neighbor.
"Singapore's population density worked against them," Jade observed as they moved through an abandoned HDB complex. "Too many people, too little space. When the factions formed, there was nowhere to retreat. You either joined a side or got crushed between them."
"How many survivors?" Zara asked.
"Government estimates before we lost contact were around 400,000. Maybe a third of the pre-impact population." Serena navigated them around a blocked stairwell. "But that was six weeks ago. The numbers have probably dropped."
"The conversion process?"
"Partly. The Sovereign has been aggressive about 'recruiting.' But also just... attrition. Disease. Starvation. Violence." She paused at a window, scanning the street below. "Singapore imported ninety percent of its food. When the ships stopped coming..."
She didn't need to finish.
They'd made it halfway to their destination when Jade raised a fist. Everyone froze.
"Movement ahead," she whispered. "Twelve signatures. Humanoid. But their electromagnetic patterns are wrong."
"Converted," Serena confirmed, her probability sense reaching out. "They're patrolling. Standard sweep pattern. They'll pass within fifty meters of our position in approximately four minutes."
"Can we avoid them?"
"The alternative routes add two hours to our timeline." She shook her head. "And they're not alone. I'm sensing additional presences in the surrounding blocks. If we try to go around, we're more likely to encounter larger groups."
Sarnav assessed the situation. Twelve converted. His team could handle that easily. But noise would draw attention. More converted. Possibly New Order human forces.
"Quiet takedown," he decided. "Ishani, you're with me. Jade, Serena, Zara, take overwatch positions. If anything goes wrong, we go loud and move fast."
Ishani's smile was sharp. "Finally."
The converted had been human once.
Sarnav could see echoes of their former selves in the way they moved. The muscle memory of people who'd walked these streets, worked in these buildings, lived normal lives before the world ended. But the dimensional energy that animated them now had twisted everything. Their skin had a grayish pallor. Their eyes glowed faintly with corrupted essence. When they spoke, it was in fragments, half-formed words that might have been memories or might have been new programming.
"...checkpoint clear..."
"...no living essence detected..."
"...continue patrol..."
They didn't detect Sarnav and Ishani until it was too late.
He took the first three before they could react, moving at A-rank speed that rendered him nearly invisible to their senses. His strikes were precise, essence-enhanced blows that shattered the dimensional bindings holding them together. They collapsed without screaming, bodies dissolving into gray mist as the corruption that sustained them dissipated.
Ishani handled the next four with brutal efficiency. Her light manipulation created blinding flashes that disoriented the converted while she closed distance. Her machete caught the light, became the light, and cut through corrupted flesh like it wasn't there.
The remaining five tried to rally. One of them, larger than the others and probably a leader, opened its mouth to sound an alarm.
Jade's electronic interference hit it before the sound could form. The converted's communication abilities were partly technological, remnants of the binding process, and she'd learned to disrupt them during the approach.
Sarnav finished the leader with a single strike to its core, the nexus point where dimensional energy concentrated in converted beings. It burst apart, showering the street with gray ash.
The last four fell in seconds. Ishani's light constructs pinned two against a wall while she executed them. Sarnav handled the others, moving through them like a force of nature, each strike measured and lethal.
Twelve converted. Thirty seconds.
"Clear," Ishani reported, not even breathing hard.
"Any alerts?" Sarnav asked.
Jade shook her head. "Their network didn't register the attack. We're still dark."
Serena emerged from her overwatch position, tablet already updating their route. "The patrol gap gives us approximately twenty minutes before the next sweep reaches this area. If we maintain current pace, we'll reach the NUS perimeter before that happens."
"Then we move." Sarnav took point, senses extended, ready for the next encounter. "Stay tight. We're getting close."
The National University of Singapore had become a fortress.
Wei Ming's people had fortified the southeastern campus with the desperate ingenuity of survivors. Barricades made from overturned vehicles and furniture blocked every approach. Guard towers, improvised structures of scaffolding and scrap metal, watched the perimeter. And surrounding everything, a shimmering barrier of translucent blue energy that Sarnav could feel from three hundred meters away.
"B-rank barrier specialist," Serena said, pride mixing with relief in her voice. "That's Wei Ming's work. He's maintaining a defensive field across the entire compound."
"How long can he sustain that?"
"Indefinitely, if he doesn't have to do anything else. But the siege forces have been probing the barrier constantly. Every attack drains him."
Sarnav studied the fortifications. Professional. Efficient. Military discipline imposed on civilian infrastructure. Wei Ming had been trained well.
"How do we approach without getting shot by his people?"
"I can signal him." Serena was already working on her tablet, composing a message using protocols she'd established during their initial communication. "If I broadcast on the emergency frequency we set up, he'll know I'm coming."
"Do it."
She transmitted. They waited.
Three minutes later, a section of the barrier flickered. Not failing, but being deliberately modified. A doorway appeared in the blue shimmer, just large enough for them to pass through single file.
"He got it," Serena breathed. "He knows we're here."
They approached the opening carefully, aware that dozens of eyes were watching from the guard towers. Sarnav could feel the tension radiating from the defenders. Survivors who'd been under siege for weeks, watching their supplies dwindle, wondering if help would ever come.
A figure emerged from behind the nearest barricade as they passed through the barrier. Tall, lean, with the same sharp features as Serena. He wore a military uniform that had seen hard use, and his eyes, exhausted but alert, fixed on his sister with an expression that mixed relief with disbelief.
"Wei Ling." His voice cracked on her name. "You came."
Serena abandoned her professional composure entirely. She ran to her brother and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. Through the network, Sarnav felt her emotions surge. Relief, love, terror that she'd almost been too late.
"Of course I came," she said, voice muffled. "You're my family, dumbass."
Wei Ming laughed, a broken sound that held weeks of fear and desperate hope. "Language. What would Ma say?"
"Ma would say I should have gotten here faster."
They held each other for a long moment. Then Wei Ming looked over his sister's head at Sarnav and the others.
"You're Sarnav Vale," he said. It wasn't a question. "Serena's been telling me about you. About... all of this."
"She's told me about you too." Sarnav stepped forward, offering his hand. "B-rank barrier specialist. Held this position for three weeks against superior forces. I'm impressed."
Wei Ming's handshake was firm despite his obvious exhaustion. "I had motivation." He glanced at his sister, still pressed against his side. "She said you'd come. I wasn't sure I believed her."
"Believe it. We're here to get your people out."
"All two hundred of them?"
"All of them."
Wei Ming studied him for a moment. Whatever he saw must have satisfied him, because he nodded slowly.
"Then we'd better talk strategy. The New Order's been massing forces for a final push. My scouts estimate they'll hit us within eighteen hours." He gestured toward the campus buildings behind him. "We've got supplies for maybe three more days. Ammunition for one major engagement. And I can't maintain the barrier and fight at the same time."
"You won't have to." Sarnav looked at his team. Ishani already assessing defensive positions, Jade scanning communications frequencies, Zara evaluating the fortifications with professional approval, and Serena still holding her brother like she'd never let go.
"We didn't come here just to evacuate. We came to break the siege."
[DAY 82]
[WIFE COUNT: 8/32]
[ESSENCE: 826,100 / 1,000,000]
[CONVERTED ELIMINATED: 12]
[SINGAPORE INSERTION: SUCCESSFUL]
[WEI MING: CONTACT ESTABLISHED]
[NEW ORDER ASSAULT: T-MINUS 18 HOURS]
[NEXT: FORTIFY]