Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

"I added a behavioral analysis."

She used the tip of her pen to draw four lines connecting the four coordinate points.

"The Creator's choice of locations follows a clear logic. Congo cuts off the energy supply chain. Dakah cuts off disaster management authority. South Sudan cuts off the food control system. Aleppo cuts off the right to life and death on the battlefield."

Patterson did not interrupt her.

"None of the four launches landed on the territory of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, nor did any directly attack their military facilities. But each launch was cutting into the outer control structure on which the old order of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council depended."

She placed the tip of her pen on the blank area between the four coordinates.

"This location selection logic shows that the Creator has a deep understanding of the great power game. He is consciously dismantling the foundation of the global power structure, while actively avoiding all red-line areas that could lead to a direct military retaliation from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council."

Patterson leaned back in his chair and tucked his chin in slightly.

"He knows what he can touch and what he can't."

"He knows more than we hoped."

Gray shut down the behavior analysis framework and switched back to Collins's sector localization map.

"Based on the vague directions given by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, I recommend that the first batch of key signal monitoring areas be set in five densely populated cities along the Mediterranean coast."

She marked them one by one on the map.

Rome. Naples. Marseille. Barcelona. Athens.

Patterson glanced at the five names.

"Passive monitoring?"

"Passive. The highest level of signal acquisition, without any active detection. If the target is indeed in this area, any active detection may trigger its early warning mechanism. We don't even understand the principles of its shielding technology yet, and the consequences of alerting it would be completely uncontrollable."

Patterson rubbed his thumb against the edge of the table twice.

"Approved. Simultaneous deployment in five cities, to be in place within 48 hours. Submit the second batch of expanded lists separately."

Gray nodded and turned off the projector.

Collins wiped the data off the whiteboard and went back to his seat.

The analysis room was silent for a few seconds.

Patterson did not get up; his gaze remained fixed on the covers of the four printouts on the table.

"Grey."

"exist."

"How long do you think Congress can hold out?"

Gray put the remote pen back on the table and paused for a moment.

"The oversight committee has already issued two written inquiries, General. The wording has become increasingly harsh each time."

Patterson stood up, stacked the four printouts together, and stuffed them into a confidential document bag.

"Make arrangements, I'll go to the closed-door meeting with them the day after tomorrow."

"General, there's something I need to remind you of."

Patterson paused for a moment as he zipped up the document bag.

"The person we're tracking has been doing nothing but saving lives for the past two weeks. Child laborers in Congo, disaster victims in Dhaka, starving refugees in South Sudan, and war-wounded civilians in Aleppo. If the existence of Project Hunter were to be revealed, public opinion would be entirely on the target's side."

Patterson zipped the zipper all the way up.

"I know."

He walked to the door with the file bag in his hand, placed his hand on the doorknob, but did not push it open.

"So I have to make those lawmakers understand one thing before I get them to sign."

Two days later, in Washington.

Nine people sat on twelve chairs on either side of the long table in the closed-door meeting room on the ground floor of the Capitol.

The chairman of the oversight committee sat at the other end of the long table, with a summary of the Hunter Project's briefings from the past two weeks spread out on the table in front of him.

Patterson sat directly opposite, with only a file folder and an untouched glass of water beside him.

The chairman turned to the last page of the briefing and slammed the paper on the table.

"General Patterson, I need you to explain why the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency is using resources from six departments to track down an individual who is saving suffering people around the world."

Patterson did not open the file folder.

"Mr. Chairman, I will answer your question with a question."

"explain."

"In the Congo mining region, energy conversion efficiency has been rewritten to be infinitely close to 100%. In the Dhaka flood zone, liquid water has been transformed into solid structures with building-grade strength. In South Sudan, saline-alkali land has been transformed into top-quality arable soil in five minutes. In Aleppo, a silver staff has provided emergency-level life support to all dying civilians within a three-kilometer radius."

He tapped his fingers four times on the table.

"Today, he chose to save refugees, he chose to treat the wounded and sick, and he chose to feed the children."

He paused for a moment.

"What about tomorrow?"

The chairman frowned slightly.

"What if he chose to rewrite the rules of physics in New York? Or London? Or Beijing, Moscow, or Paris?"

Patterson's gaze swept over the nine faces on either side of the table.

"How should we respond?"

The female senator in the third chair from the left spoke.

"General, none of the four incidents you just listed involved hostile behavior. Your assumption is not supported by facts."

"Madam Congresswoman, I don't need facts to support my claim."

Patterson's voice didn't rise, but the rhythm slowed down.

"What I need is a contingency plan. We're tracking him not because he's saving people, but because he can choose not to save at any time. He can choose to do something else at any time. And there's no power on Earth that can stop him."

The meeting room fell silent.

Patterson continued.

"This capability has not been authorized by anyone, has not been checked by any institution, and has no known means to stop it. The strategic capabilities he possesses alone exceed the combined military power of any country on Earth. My job is not to judge his goodwill, but to assess the consequences of this capability going out of control."

Twelve seconds.

The meeting room remained silent for a full twelve seconds.

The chairman closed the summary of the briefing in front of him and took out a pen from his pocket.

"Continue to track."

He signed his name on the approval page, then put down his pen and looked at Patterson.

"One additional restriction: No proactive contact or intervention is permitted until the target exhibits hostile behavior. I require a progress report every seventy-two hours."

Patterson took the signed document and glanced at the chairman's signature.

"receive."

He put the documents into a file bag, stood up, and pushed his chair back under the table.

The chairman added a sentence.

"General Patterson, this restriction is not a suggestion, it is an order."

"Understood, Mr. Chairman."

Patterson walked out of the conference room carrying a file bag, his shadow stretched long by the fluorescent lights in the corridor.

He knew that the restrictive clause was neatly signed on paper, but the distance between the paper and reality is never determined by the person who signs it.

The deployment instructions for the passive signal monitoring in the five cities had already been sent out before he stepped into the elevator.

Rome. Naples. Marseille. Barcelona. Athens.

Five nets are laid out along the northern coast of the Mediterranean, waiting for that unseen shadow to slip through some crack and leave a trace.

Patterson pressed the button for the basement level, and the elevator doors closed.