Several thousand kilometers away, Dr. Elias Mercer sat at the end of a conference table with six armed soldiers inside the room.
All of them had Astral Marks.
They were doing better than most of the people currently being moved into emergency facilities across the country, although not perfectly. One soldier still held his rifle with both hands because he had already bent part of the grip. Another wore tinted protective glasses.
They were functional.
That was one reason Elias was still sitting at the table instead of inside a cell.
A large monitor covered most of the wall in front of him. More than a dozen government feeds remained connected through emergency channels.
The Asterian Federation. The Lianhua Republic. The Vardesh Union. The Nordrass Federation. The Hoshin Republic. Valenne. The Crown Isles Commonwealth. Bravora.
Several others joined when their connections allowed it. Video disappeared without warning. Audio arrived several seconds late. Nobody complained anymore. Another monitor displayed reports from observatories, military tracking stations, and the satellites that were still responding.
Most of the information remained unconfirmed.
What had been confirmed was enough.
The same thirteen signs were visible from nearly every reporting country. Their orientation changed slightly depending on location, but all thirteen remained above the horizon in both hemispheres.
One astronomical institute had checked its equipment three times before submitting the report. Another had initially blamed instrument failure until several observatories returned the same result.
The known stellar catalogue no longer matched the sky.
Beyond that, confidence dropped rapidly. Several satellites had already begun losing orientation because their star trackers could no longer match the sky with the reference stars stored in their systems. Some recovered using terrestrial references. Others did not.
One line remained highlighted near the bottom of the report.
[CURRENT CELESTIAL POSITION OF EARTH: UNRESOLVED]
Nobody on the conference had found a better way to describe the problem.
The Asterian official speaking first appeared to have read the same line several times. "Dr. Mercer. I will ask again. How did you know?"
"About what?"
"The Marks. The classifications. The instructions you gave our soldiers before midnight."
Elias rested both hands on the table. "Those are three different questions."
"You identified Taurus, Gemini, Aries, and Aquarius before anyone publicly knew what they were. You also gave instructions for limiting their manifestations."
"Yes."
"And you expect us to believe you had nothing to do with tonight?"
"I never said that."
The room became quiet.
One of the soldiers behind Elias shifted. He ignored him.
The official continued. "You are the primary person of interest in an event affecting the entire planet. Billions developed these Marks. Entire regions no longer match existing maps. Communication networks are failing, and our astronomers cannot determine where Earth is."
"I know."
Several people on the call had already become accustomed to that answer.
"You expected this," the Asterian official said.
"I expected something similar."
"What does that mean?"
"It means this is larger than your geography."
The man stopped for a moment before asking the more useful question. "Where are we?"
Elias checked the celestial report. "I cannot give you a reliable location."
"Cannot or will not?"
"Both."
The Lianhua representative entered the discussion before Asteria could continue. "You knew Earth might lose its old astronomical reference."
"I knew there was a possibility."
"And you did not warn anyone."
"I did not know it would happen."
"But you knew it could."
"Yes."
That was already more than they wanted to hear. The Asterian official leaned back. "And you knew enough to prepare soldiers before it started."
"Yes."
"If you were standing in front of me, I would have you detained."
"You already tried."
Nobody answered.
"The first team sent to arrest me had three Awakened soldiers," Elias continued. "They were losing control. I explained how to reduce it."
"You refused to cooperate until they stopped treating you as a prisoner."
"I refused to become a prisoner while explaining how to stop your own people from injuring themselves."
The representative from Lianhua studied him. "You are using what you know to protect yourself."
"Yes."
That answer stopped several people. There was no reason to deny something everyone in the conference already understood.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"To stay alive."
"That is all?"
"For tonight."
Elias turned his attention to the reports appearing on another screen.
Millions of people had manifested abilities they did not understand. Most were not trying to hurt anyone. They were causing injuries because their bodies no longer behaved the way they had the day before.
The Vardesh representative asked the obvious question, "You know how to control them."
"I know enough to reduce the immediate accidents."
"Then give us everything."
"No."
The answer came quickly enough that several people stopped writing. The Asterian official frowned. "Why?"
"Because once you know everything I know, you no longer need me."
"That is not how governments operate."
Elias glanced at the six soldiers surrounding him. "This is how frightened governments operate."
Nobody argued immediately. The Lianhua representative opened one of the reports. "The procedures you already gave us are working."
"Partially."
She summarized the results. Taurus incidents had decreased when bearers limited the range of their movements and maintained physical resistance feedback. Aries improved when movements were shortened and deliberately completed. Gemini became easier to manage when unnecessary visual and auditory input was reduced. Aquarius bearers were being kept away from large fluid sources and unnecessary conductive systems until their transfer pathways were understood.
"Those were not guesses," she said.
"No."
"Where did you learn them?"
Elias waited before answering. "That is not information I am giving you."
The Asterian official rubbed one hand across his face. "You understand why that makes you look guilty."
"I understood that before you did."
A representative from Nordrass redirected the discussion. They could not keep millions of people contained indefinitely, but neither could they allow uncontrolled manifestations to continue inside crowded cities.
Elias agreed with both points.
"Then what do you suggest?" the Nordrass representative asked.
The world map beside the government feeds had become less useful every hour.
Several regions were already marked unreliable. Some coastlines no longer matched satellite data. Cities had lost contact with neighboring areas because roads leaving them no longer reached the same places.
Other reports were worse.
Areas that should have been hundreds of kilometers apart were now within sight of each other. An observatory had reported an unfamiliar mountain range where maps showed flat land for more than four hundred kilometers.
The problem was no longer whether the maps were inaccurate. The land itself had stopped agreeing with them.
"Temporary facilities," Elias said.
Several officials began taking notes.
"Use large spaces where possible. Keep medical emergencies separate from manifestation control. Do not classify every Awakened person as hostile because you do not understand them."
"And if they refuse?"
"Then deal with the person who refuses." Elias faced the Asterian feed. "Do not create ten thousand enemies because you are afraid of one."
That received no immediate objection.
"Separate people when their manifestations make it necessary. Give them enough instruction to stop hurting themselves or anyone around them."
A representative from Hoshin checked another report. "What about the Marks that do not match your twelve classifications?"
Elias stopped. Only briefly.
But it was still long enough to be noticed.
"Black central circle," the representative continued. "Thirteen structures around it."
"Yes."
"You know about them."
"I know they exist."
"They were not included in the classifications you provided."
"No."
"Why?"
Elias did not answer.
The Asterian official called his name. "Dr. Mercer."
"Keep them separate."
"Why?"
"Because you do not understand them."
"We do not understand the other twelve either."
"You understand enough about the Twelve to stop several obvious mistakes."
"And the thirteenth?"
Elias lowered his eyes to the table and said, "Do not provoke them."
The Hoshin representative frowned. "That is not an explanation."
"It is the instruction I am giving you."
Nobody was satisfied. Nobody ordered the soldiers to remove him either. But for now, that was enough.
The conference continued.
Every connected country was already solving the same immediate problems in different ways. Schools had become shelters. Stadiums were being used as processing centers. Universities were being converted into medical facilities. Military bases received people whose manifestations were considered too dangerous for ordinary shelters.
The names differed.
Stabilization Centers. Awakening Shelters. Emergency Control Sites. Temporary Containment Facilities.
The purpose was mostly the same: identify the Awakened, treat the injured, separate dangerous manifestations, and teach people enough control to prevent more accidents.
After that, nobody had a plan. The larger problem was that every government was still responding as though its territory remained where it had been yesterday.
Borders existed on paper. The land beneath them had become less cooperative.
More national leaders joined the conference as emergency communication routes were restored. The discussion became louder almost immediately.
Aircraft routes could no longer be trusted. Several governments had lost contact with parts of their own territory. One coastal state now reported mountains where open sea had existed before midnight. Another had discovered that an inland city was less than twenty kilometers from an unfamiliar coastline.
A third report caused the argument to stop for several seconds. The country’s western border markers were still there. The neighboring country was not.
Land existed beyond the border. It simply did not appear on any map of Earth. Nobody knew what laws applied to territory that nobody could identify.
Eventually, the Asterian leader raised his voice over the conference. "We are not solving this by shouting over each other."
The leader of Lianhua responded, "That may be the first useful statement made in the last twenty minutes."
Enough people stopped speaking for the discussion to continue.
"We cannot handle this as separate national emergencies," the Asterian leader said.
Nobody seriously disagreed. The alternative was a global fracture they could not afford.
Vardesh objected only to the possibility of Asteria or Lianhua controlling the response. That argument ended quickly when neither country claimed it should.
The Lianhua leader suggested using the World Assembly’s surviving emergency channels. Some remained functional.
"A global meeting," the Asterian leader decided. "Every government we can contact."
Several objections followed. Some capitals were unreachable. Others had no verified travel routes. Several governments refused to move their leaders until they knew whether aircraft could reach the intended destination.
Those were logistical problems. The need for a meeting was not.
The Crown Isles representative eventually reminded them that the World Assembly maintained emergency diplomatic facilities outside several major capitals. Only one had confirmed contact. Nobody knew whether it was safely reachable.
They would find out.
If it was, the governments would meet there under the World Assembly rather than allowing any major state to host the conference on its own territory.
The arguments continued after that. Security guarantees. Travel routes. Remote participation. Representation for governments whose capitals could no longer communicate.
But the decision had already been made.
They needed somewhere to meet.
Several minutes later, a World Assembly coordinator joined the conference. "Until then, what instructions should be distributed internationally?"
The immediate directives were simpler than the arguments that had produced them. Contain threats that could not yet be controlled. Move unstable Awakened people into temporary facilities. Keep medical patients under medical care rather than automatically treating them as prisoners. Share verified control procedures between governments.
Then the Asterian leader added one more, "Project Meridian will be investigated internationally."
Elias said nothing.
The coordinator turned to his feed. "And Dr. Mercer?"
Nobody answered immediately. Elias remained seated at the conference table with six soldiers around him.
Finally, the leader of Lianhua answered, "He remains under observation."
The Asterian leader appeared less satisfied. "For now."
Elias did not object.
The World Assembly began transmitting the agreed directives. Governments shared reports. Military units received the limited control procedures Elias had provided. Temporary facilities continued filling while hospitals created protocols for injuries that had not existed the day before.
Researchers documented unfamiliar Marks. Astronomers continued trying to identify a sky that no longer matched their records. And inside nearly every government connected to the conference, someone began searching for Project Meridian and Dr. Elias Mercer.
Elias had expected that.
It was why he had given them enough information to keep him useful.
Too useful that it was a waste to replace him.