June 3, 2440 9:02 AM
“Now—let’s get down to business. This trip will last until the eleventh of July and hit twenty-plus cities.”
The quiet that followed was purposeful, everyone waiting to see which question would be asked first. W’ren, Keeper of the Flame, tilted his head, weighing the words as carefully as a swordsman testing his balance.
“I noticed you’re not visiting the South Asian Confederacy,” he said at last, cautious but curious.
Matt’s reply came flat, unbending as steel. “Nor will I ever. The South Asian Confederacy is just the political mask evil and greed wears.”
No one moved. Even the hum of the HVAC seemed to pause, as if the room itself was listening.
“I thought your goal was unifying Earth’s factions,” W’ren pressed gently. “Am I missing part of the puzzle?”
Matt’s jaw set. He folded his hands together on the desk, the motion precise enough to signal discipline, the tone of a commander preparing to brief a tribunal.
“Nationalized Corporations have violated my patents one hundred twenty-seven times in the last seventeen years. I’ve sued them in arbitration. I’ve won. They ignore the rulings—because there’s no sovereign force left to make them comply. But that’s not why I cut them off.”
He drew in a breath, and his green eyes fixed on the far wall. The room braced itself.
“I lost most of my first company command in the swamps of northern Florida—slaughtered by Prophet Ezekiel Sanders and his Divine Republic, with mortars traced to factories in Hyderabad. The SAC armed the Prophet for nineteen years to destabilize Amazon. They denied it publicly. Privately, they laughed.”
T’mari’s hand brushed against his under the desk, not to calm him but to anchor him.
“My sister’s ambulance was shot down by a shoulder-fired rocket manufactured in Mumbai. The survivors were executed—bullets from Karachi, fired from submachine guns manufactured all over the Punjab.” His voice dropped, cold and certain. “I don’t deal with war profiteers.”
The silence stretched, sharp and taut. Even L’Shel, usually quick with humor, folded her arms and bowed her head.
“The SAC armed the lunar rebellion two centuries ago. They supplied Martian separatists—and the Martian military equally, eighty years ago. They play all sides and answer to none. They’re a criminal syndicate in a suit. They are a stain on humanity.”
Matt leaned forward, his tone turning from confession to declaration.
“Revolutions are born of hunger, betrayal, and corruption. The SAC has perfected all three. So no, I won’t license to them. I won’t include them. I’ll bleed them. I’ll make their own people rise up in rebellion. I’ll starve their corporations, break their alliances, and burn their supply chains to the root. I will feed the hungry the flesh of those who told them to eat cake when there was no bread to be had.”
The words hung heavy, a vow made before kin and comrades.
“Before that, I will have mapped every link in their supply chain and every puppet they’ve hidden behind. I will finish my last mission. I will bring justice for my people and for my sister.”
Angelina had never heard most of those things before. She shuddered, not at his anger, but at the deep iron in his voice—how much of himself he was willing to spend to settle this account. Her mind raced ahead to the nights he had spent pacing the porch, sleepless and silent, and she realized those silences had been battlefields.
She turned her gaze to T’mari. The V’ren woman met her eyes, steady, unafraid. Whatever had been shared between them, she approved. There was no fear there, only acknowledgment of the road ahead.
Angelina’s glance swept to W’ren and L’Shel. She saw what they saw: that Matt’s words were not empty fire, but a call that reached directly into the marrow of the V’ren caste system. To their ears, this was not just a human vendetta. It was a High Lord’s decree, and one they would follow into the gates of hell itself.
She understood, finally, why they had named him their High Lord.
Matt exhaled, the steel in him cooling into something quieter but no less resolute. “I will end the Reveries not as a single walker, or the ghost in the night, but openly under the sun.”
Only Angelina caught the weight of the last phrase. He had slipped into French, the words delivered like a cipher meant only for her. It took her a heartbeat to translate—years of high school lessons flashing back, the memory of chalk on blackboards and dog-eared notebooks. And with the translation came a chill, for it was not just language but intent: a promise he would no longer fight in shadows.
Her hands trembled slightly, and she curled them into fists to hide it.
The others began to stir, the moment breaking as W’ren asked a technical question about the shuttle’s itinerary. Kevin fidgeted, MJ whispered something under her breath, and Mall’s eyes stayed locked on Matt, absorbing every word like scripture.
But Angelina could not look away from T’mari. The alien woman’s slight nod told her everything: this was no passing storm. It was the shaping of a campaign.
And somewhere deep inside, she feared it might destroy him.
