SSS-Rank Awakening: My Infinite Absorption System

Chapter 90: The Wrong Countdown

"Look at this date stamp in the corner of the meteorological bulletin, Sefu."

Jolly leaned across the folding card table inside the terminal twelve logistics office, tapping a printed weather map with the yellow eraser of her pencil.

"What about it, little sister?"

"The municipal harbor report says updated Tuesday... but the barometric pressure code at the bottom has a date from two weeks ago."

Sefu adjusted his leather reading monocle, squinting at the fine print through the lens.

"By the anvil, she is right... the main oceanography office just re-stamped the old header on last month’s forecast."

Fin stepped into the office, carrying a wooden crate of spare radio batteries from the armory.

[ Weekly Growth Tick 3 Active: Digestion II ]

[ Compounding Absorbed Core Pools... ]

[ Strength: +1 (119 → 120) ]

[ Endurance: 120 | Agility: 128 (Overclock: 384) | Sense: 84 | Pulse: 10 ]

[ EXP: 22,500,000 / 250,000,000 ]

A subtle, solid density settled into the bone structure of Fin’s shoulders, adding another permanent ounce of reinforced mass to his frame.

"What did Jolly find?"

"The city’s official thirty-day countdown was calculated using stale oceanic drift models," Sefu grunted, tossing the paper onto the desk.

"Maya, bring your terminal over here."

Maya set her laptop down beside Jolly’s map, connecting the satellite uplink cable with a crisp snap.

"Pinging the live deep-sea buoys right now, Fin... give me forty seconds."

The portable screen flickered, displaying real-time sea surface temperature contours stretching four hundred miles west into the Pacific trench.

"Jolly’s right... the municipal models assumed a two-knot oceanic drift speed."

"And the actual current speed?"

"Four point eight knots, accelerated by the spatial distortion around the open SS gate."

"So when do the leviathans actually make landfall?" Ruby asked, leaning over Maya’s shoulder.

"The public bulletin says thirty days from yesterday... which would put landfall on day forty-eight."

"And the live buoys?"

"The vanguard wave is tracking closer to day forty-seven... roughly twenty-eight days from today, give or take thirty-six hours of tidal variance."

"Forty-seven days instead of forty-eight doesn’t sound like a massive difference to an outsider," Nila noted.

"It is a catastrophic difference if your evacuation trains are scheduled for the forty-eighth day," Talla warned, stepping into the room with a sheaf of sector transit manifests.

"One day earlier means twenty-four hours of civilians standing on open piers while fifty-foot sea monsters breach the breakwater."

"Can we publish a corrected forecast?"

"We cannot publish as the municipal weather service," Talla said, tapping her fountain pen against her teeth. "The city bureaucracy would tie our report up in review committees for six days."

"Then publish it under the Coastal Marshal charter," Fin said, pointing to the brass seal stamped on his commission paper. "Issue an official navigational advisory to all port authorities, fishing fleets, and civilian shelters."

"We publish it with an uncertainty range," Maya insisted, typing the parameters into her terminal. "Estimated landfall window: day forty-six to day forty-eight, centered on day forty-seven... based on live deep-water buoy telemetry and verified thermal cooling rates."

"That is responsible science, Maya, not panic mongering."

Jolly looked up from her pencil notes, her brow furrowed with quiet concern.

"Fin?"

"Yes, kiddo?"

"If the big monsters hit the walls on day forty-seven... does that mean we have to leave our apartment earlier?"

"It means the apartment won’t be safe once the sirens sound, Jolly."

"Where do Nim and I go?"

"You and Nim will be at the protected inland reception center in District One, four miles behind the high granite ridge."

"I don’t want to leave you here by the docks, Fin."

"I have a job to do on the breakwater, little sister... and your job is to keep Nim company and help Sefu run the triage desk."

Nim stepped into the doorway, her dark ears tilting forward as she heard her name.

"I can help with the inland desk," Nim said softly, her voice calm and steady. "I can translate for the beast-folk refugees from the western outskirts."

"That is vital work, Nim," Talla affirmed, sliding an administrative volunteer badge across the desk. "Many of the feline and lupine clans will not trust uniformed city guards, but they will talk to you."

"I will speak with them," Nim said, pinning the badge to the collar of her grey woolen tunic.

A sharp chime sounded from Maya’s terminal as the defense commission’s response flashed onto the screen.

"Response from the central logistics authority, Fin... they accepted our navigational advisory."

"Did they alter the evacuation timetable?"

"They officially delegated evacuation sectors four and five to Halden House and the Iron Dogs."

"What are the specific parameters?"

"District Six transit terminal, the third avenue rail siding, and the old cathedral basement shelter."

"Total population to extract?"

"Roughly fourteen thousand civilians across the three sectors."

"Fourteen thousand souls in twenty-eight days," Ruby murmured, checking the tension on her shield harness. "That means five hundred people on the trains every single day, without fail."

"Can the third avenue rail siding handle five hundred people a day, Sefu?"

"The siding has three parallel tracks and a raised wooden loading dock, Fin," Sefu replied, tracing the lines on the freight map. "If we run two ten-car passenger trains in the morning and two freight trains in the evening, we can move eight hundred people and forty tons of supplies every single day."

"What about security on the passenger cars?"

"Two armed Iron Dogs per vestibule, plus an inspection checkpoint at the station gate to keep contraband and illegal mana traps off the wagons."

"And the medical cars?"

"Nim and Jolly can oversee the passenger manifest intake at the platform gate," Talla suggested. "We issue colored wrist ribbons... red for urgent medical cases, blue for unaccompanied minors, and green for general transit."

"That will prevent the platform from turning into a chaotic stampede," Nila agreed.

"What about our personal gear from apartment 4B, Fin?" Jolly asked, her small voice quiet against the hum of the radios.

"We pack our essentials into two canvas duffel bags tonight, Jolly."

"My sketchbooks and the wooden soup spoons?"

"The sketchbooks, the spoons, and your warm winter boots," Fin assured her with a faint smile. "Everything else can be replaced, but not those."

"What about your spare hatchet head?"

"Already packed in the iron grease box, kiddo."

"Then we don’t waste a single hour," Fin said, looking around the room. "Talla, post the fallback destinations and fuel allocations on the public boards."

"Sefu, assign ten Iron Dogs to inspect every single rail carriage on the third avenue siding."

"We will have those tracks cleared and the boilers stoked before sundown, Marshal."

"Maya, maintain continuous satellite telemetry on the SS gate vortex and ping us if the drift speed increases by even a tenth of a knot."

"Telemetry is locked, Fin... I will sleep with the headset on my pillow."

"Ruby, you and Nila run a perimeter sweep along the siding approach to ensure Genesis didn’t leave any leftover constructs in the switching tunnels."

"On it, kid, we’ll make sure the rails are as clean as a whistle."

"And make sure you take two shock flares," Nila added, checking her hip holster. "Those tunnels get pitch black past the second junction."

"I’ve got three in my belt pouch, fencer, don’t worry about my eyesight."

Outside the logistics bunker, the cold harbor drizzle fell steadily upon the concrete aprons, washing away the soot of the old city.

"Let’s get to work, team... the countdown is running, and the sea is not going to wait for us."