Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again. Chapter 622: Sacs in the sky

It was not strange to hear warning bells so early in the morning inside fortress four. However today they didn’t just ring; they scread. It was a jagged, chanical wail that tore through the early morning routine, a sound that sent the entire population into a practiced, synchronized panic.

Sunshine, who was usually an early riser, was woken by them. Having slept late, Hades had reached out in the middle of the night and deactivated her personal alarm. He knew that she was tired after everything that happened with the council, so he left her sleeping and went out to monitor base activities.

That peaceful sleep ended the mont the vibrations from the heavy artillery outside rattled the windowpanes.

Sunshine bolted upright, her heart hamring against her ribs. She didn’t waste ti on a mirror. She yanked on a pair of tactical cargo pants and a faded t-shirt; her boots were still half-unlaced as she skidded into the hallway.

The kids were already up. They weren’t hiding under their beds like normal children; they were huddled by the reinforced glass of the window, their breath fogging the pane. "Mom, look!" Earl shouted, his finger trembling as he pointed toward the heavens. "The aliens are finally hear!"

Sunshine joined them, her eyes narrowing as she looked up. It wasn’t a bird, and it wasn’t the watchers because they were lounging on the bubble.

Hovering just below the gray overcast were

thousands of egg-like sacs dangling from the low-hanging clouds, suspended by thin, translucent filants that looked like spider silk.

"Are those baby Watchers about to be hatched?" Castiel asked, his voice small and innocent. "Are they coming to play on the bubble?"

Ariel, always the strategist, shook his head with a look of deep disdain. "Don’t be a dumb. They’d be stupid to hatch here. Their young would be vulnerable here and they know that. Watchers aren’t idiots."

Cass pouted. "Mommy, Ariel called dumb."

Sunshine placed a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. "I will punish him later. But Ariel is right, these aren’t Watcher hatchlings. They’re... sothing else." She turned to Jill and Cathy, the trusted caretakers who had appeared like shadows to stand guard. "Keep them away from the glass. If those things make it through the bubble, I don’t want the kids anywhere near the impact zone."

"But Mom!" Ariel protested, crossing his arms. "The Kid Squad should be out there! We have can help."

Sunshine leaned down and gave each of them a quick, firm kiss on the forehead. "Not today, General Ariel. Today, you stay here and protect the house. That’s an order."

As she turned to leave, her phone began to buzz incessantly. It was like a swarm of angry hornets in her pocket.

"Ma’am have you seen them?" one text read. She put her phone away, took an elevator down and raced into the foyer of the building.

"Hades told us to stay put, but my neighbor is outside with a gun!" a person shouted as she passed by. "Should we do the sa?"

Sunshine ignored the noise and sprinted outside. She jumped into her vehicle, Day drove straight to the Command Center. The streets of the entire fortress were a ss of confused soldiers and terrified civilians peeking out of curtains.

"Lucky for us," she muttered to herself as Day swerved around a stray supply crate, "a big number of the residents were still sleeping. Half the panic is just people waking up to see it."

Inside the Command Center, the atmosphere was thick with the sll of burnt coffee and butter bread. So mbers of the committee were already there_ half in person, half flickering on giant screens like digital ghosts from the towns that made up the fortress.

"Suni, thank God," Lisha said, her hands flying over a keyboard. "I’ve gone through every page of the Beast Book. These things... they aren’t in there. They are new." She was still in her pajamas made from the sa material as heat suits, and furry bedroom slippers.

Hades was standing at the head of the table, his arms crossed, his face a mask of cold iron. "The mist rolled over the fortress at early this morning," he said, his voice grounding the room. "When it cleared, it left those... sacs behind. They aren’t moving. They’re just... waiting to pop."

Sunshine stepped up to the main screen and used her fingers to pinch and zoom on a high-resolution image of a single sac. Her stomach did a slow flip. The sac was laced with pulsing, blueish-red veins. Inside, a yellowish fluid swirled, thick and oily.

"System," she whispered, her internal interface blinking to life in her mind’s eye. "What are we looking at?"

[ERROR: UNKNOWN BIOMASS DETECTED,] the System’s voice rang in her head, sounding uncharacteristically frustrated. [DATA INSUFFICIENT. I REQUIRE A SENSORY FEED OF THE INTERNAL FLUID OR THE CORE TISSUE. RECOMND: PROXIMITY ANALYSIS.]

She almost grunted. Proximity analysis! Who the hell was going to go out there to take a closer look? It was in monts like this that she rembered, she had a repairman system. It was not a master of all subjects at the end of the day!

"It’s nothing I’ve seen before," Sunshine said aloud to the room. "The Watchers are getting creative. They’re evolving faster than we can catalog them." She let out a long, worried sigh, her gaze locked on the glowing sacs. "What are you?"

The silence of the room was punctured by Sheldon, who stood up so fast his chair clattered to the floor. "Wait a minute. Hold on. This is bad. You_ Sunshine Raine_ you don’t know?"

He looked around the room, his eyes wide with a growing, frantic terror. "You’re the one who knows everything! You told us when the storms were coming! You told us how to kill the Crocodyllus! If you don’t know what these things are, then we’re already dead!"

"Sheldon, sit down," Warren snapped.

"No! I won’t sit down!" Sheldon yelled, his voice cracking. "She’s our cheat code! If the cheat code doesn’t work, the ga is over! We need to start evacuating! We need to_ "

Before he could finish his sentence, two guards grabbed him by the elbows.

"Get him out of here," Hades ordered without even looking at the man. "He’s a contagion of panic. Put him in a quiet room until he rembers how to breathe."