Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 657: Explaining the rifts.

The room went deathly silent. They had all fought the creatures, but seeing the wounds on the map made the scale of the war feel overwhelming. They were practically sitting ducks down here.

"Passageways?" Sheldon repeated, his voice cracking slightly. He looked at the swirling vortex on the map as if it were a predator waiting to pounce. "You make it sound like the world has a leaky roof, Sunshine. But instead of rain, we’re getting twelve-foot-tall nightmares with too many sharp teeth."

Surprisingly, it was a very good explanation that summarized their situation in a few words.

"You seem to have understood what I am saying in your own twisted way, Sheldon." Sunshine answered. "It is exactly how you have put it. We have a leaky roof--no leaky roofs because there is more than one. All the bad things happening to earth was coming through hat leaky roof."

Vicente leaned in, his face pale in the blue light of the display. "I am still trying to grasp this....so, you’re saying there are literal gaps in the sky? Like... holes up there in a pace we cannot even, see? These things are coming from another world."

Sunshine nodded slowly. "Yes. Those mutants that are attacking us...the mist, it all comes from another place. With all that has been happening, I had assumed that by now, everyone had realized that we are not alone in the universe. These mutants are not born on earth. They did not escape some government lab."

The room descended into a frantic sort of energy. Father Nicodemus didn’t say a word; he simply tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling of the Command Center as if he could see straight through the reinforced concrete to the heavens. His lips moved in a silent, desperate plea for guidance from a higher power.

Warren stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the floor. He paced a tight circle, his hands knotting together. "We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves. If this is true then we have to do something. We can’t just hide under the safety of the bubble while the world bleeds out. We cannot live in the bubble for the rest of our lives.

What will our future generations do?For how long will we fight this war? If we don’t plug those holes, the mutants will just keep coming. It’s a math problem we can’t win. What if one day we lose to them? What if the next mutants that come are.... are..."

"We all know what you mean, Warren!" Jon snapped, slamming his palm onto the heavy metal table. The thud echoed like a gunshot. "But look at us! We’re just humans....and some superhumans. Those things are bigger and just as strong or stronger. What are we supposed to do? Use threads and needles to sew the sky?"

One by one, the voices died down. The shouting stopped. The pacing halted. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, every pair of eyes in the room drifted toward the head of the table. To the woman that had solutions for everything.

Every eye was expecting her to provide the magic answer.

Sunshine sat perfectly still. She looked quiet_ too quiet. It was the kind of silence that usually preceded a thunderstorm.

"How did you even find this out?" Sheldon asked, his businessman’s instinct for ’due diligence’ kicking in despite the terror. "I mean, this is... it’s a lot to take in. Is this legit information? Or are we chasing ghosts? A tear in the sky! Come on man!"

Hades, who had been leaning against the wall picking at a stray thread on his sleeve, let out a sharp, nasty sneer. He didn’t even look up. "Tell me, Sheldon. When has my wife ever given this committee information that turned out to be wrong? When has she led you into a ditch? We should all be thanking her for saving us thus far and telling us what the problem is."

The silence that followed wasn’t just quiet; it was dead. It was the kind of silence that made you hear your own heartbeat.

Sheldon opened his mouth, thought better of it, and sat back down with a muffled "Fair point."

"Suni?" Lisha said, "what do we do? At this point, if you say threads and needles or glue, we will be happy to pick them up. Anyone with brains can figure out that if we closed the holes, the apocalypse ends."

Sunshine finally spoke, her voice steady but carrying a trace of weariness. "It wasn’t easy for me to believe it either. It sounds insane but the data that I was given doesn’t lie. The patterns of mutant migration, the energy spikes...and the information source is legit."

Gasps and murmurs echoed through the room.

"But how did this happen?" Hadrian asked, his brow furrowed. "The world was fine. Then the meteors hit, and everything went to hell. How do rifts just... happen? Did something stretch the sky?"

Sunshine took a deep breath. It was time. No more half-truths, no more ’need-to-know’ basis. "It wasn’t just a random rock from space, Hadrian. It was an experiment. Our government_ Finch and his people_ tried to play with forces they didn’t understand. They found an alien ship on one of their expeditions and used its technology to create something that was supposed to correct the weather here on earth. Unfortunately, when it was activated, it only led to more disaster." She looked around, "Some of you here were investors in that project."

The billionaires in the room shifted uncomfortably, her husband inclusive.

"I am not blaming you; Finch and his people lied to you." She emphasized. She tapped the screen, and a jagged, pulsing icon appeared in the center of the rifts. "The biggest problem we have is this stone." She lifted the piece of prime core that she had taken from Greg. "It is called a Prime Core, and it arrived with the meteors." she explained.

"These creatures that out to destroy us sent it here in one piece but it shattered.... we do not know the exact location of all the pieces. The stone is one of the reasons why the creatures are here. We need to find the pieces and destroy them."

"Explain some more." Hadrian requested. He raised the prime core piece he had and so did the other superhumans in the room.

Sunshine let out a sigh and told them what she knew about Xylos, the Xylas, the watchers. She could see how they looked at her with disbelief.

"So, we are pawns in their hunting games!" Jin scoffed. "No wonder when mutants attack, they sit and watch."

Sunshine nodded. "That gives us two crucial missions; To destroy the Prime core wherever it is found and to close the rifts."

Even Sheldon, who usually only cared about profit margins and his own skin, looked sick. He didn’t want that Prime core. Not if it came with watchers. "Holy heavens help us."

"We start with the Waldens," Sunshine said, her eyes turning cold. "They have some pieces of the prime core. All their superhumans are using them. It will not be easy getting them to hand them over."