My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible Chapter 502 Finding Themselves In A Tough Spot (2)

The underground situation room in the West Wing had previously handled tough discussions.

But this discussion stood apart.

Not due to stakes loftier than any prior crisis—although they truly were—but because all gathered there had examined the identical report and drawn the identical deduction on their own, prior to uttering even one syllable.

No viable strategy existed.

National Security Advisor Patricia Yuen launched right in. "The recruitment announcement went live more than twelve hours ago. As of thirty minutes ago, we have confirmed that at least forty-seven American citizens with relevant medical or culinary credentials have already submitted applications. We did not know they were applying. We had no advance notice. We have no mechanism to have known."

Defense Secretary Harold Briggs placed his printed copy of the announcement on the table. "Define relevant credentials."

"Three are currently employed by VA medical centers. One is a physical therapist attached to Walter Reed. Two are nurses at Johns Hopkins. One is a culinary instructor at the Culinary Institute of America who apparently applied within eight minutes of the announcement dropping."

CIA Director Frank Calloway remained silent from the outset. He spoke while eyes fixed on the document. "The 'What We Are Not Looking For' section."

"We saw it," Yuen said.

"They wrote it for us. Not exclusively for us, but for us specifically among others. They know we'd want someone inside. They're saying they'll identify the attempt and remove the individual from the facility." He finally looked up. "That's not a standard disclaimer. That's a public statement of counterintelligence capability directed at every intelligence service on the planet simultaneously."

"Can they actually do it?" Briggs asked.

"They built a functioning lunar base without satellite detection. They have real-time communication from outside the solar system. They accelerated a clinical trial timeline by thirty days without explanation." Calloway put the document down. "Yes. They can do it. Besides, they are seeing our moves in real-time."

A chilling hush descended afterward.

The Secretary of State leaned in, shattering the quiet with his query. "What's the legal position on travel restriction?"

White House Counsel David Park anticipated that very question. "Narrow. We can delay passport issuance for national security grounds in specific cases, but applying that broadly to medical professionals applying for a clinical support role would require us to make a public argument that Nova Technologies' lunar facility represents a national security threat. Given the current public context, that argument would not survive the news cycle. A VA nurse being prevented from going to the moon to help terminal cancer patients is not a story we want to be in."

"Nova Technologies already accounted for that," Osei said. "The line about blocked volunteers being replaced by the next eligible applicant. They removed the leverage before we found it."

"They removed it publicly," Calloway said. "In the announcement. So everyone could see that we had no leverage."

President Elaine Marsh had observed silently from the table's head. She pored over the document twice pre-meeting and once amid it. "Frank. The facility. What do we actually think it is?"

Calloway pulled out a distinct folder. "We have three sources of information. The livestreams, the announcements, and inference. I'll take them in order."

He spread three printed images from livestream footage—high-res satellite-like stills pulled from the feed.

"From the livestreams, we can confirm the existence of multiple spacecraft of varying scale, real-time communication capability from beyond the solar system, and operational shuttle technology that survived Jupiter atmospheric entry. The Jupiter entry alone tells us their hull engineering operates at tolerances we cannot replicate. The communication technology has no analogue in any public or classified research program we're aware of."

He shifted to the next batch of papers.

"From the announcements, we know Lunar Base Sanctuary maintains Earth-equivalent conditions for an unspecified population. It has private accommodation, full meal service, medical treatment facilities capable of running a hundred-volunteer clinical trial simultaneously, shuttle landing and launch infrastructure, and real-time Earth communication. The orientation document describes a facility with a defined chain of command, emergency procedures specific to the location, and existing staff already in place before the thirty-six recruits arrive."

He lingered on that final detail.

"Which means there is existing staff already there. The announcement says selected staff will be transported five days before trial commencement for orientation. It doesn't say they'll be the first people there. It implies the opposite."

Marsh stayed mute.

"From inference," Calloway pressed on, "we can work backward from the life support requirements alone. Two hundred people minimum — volunteers, observers, recruited staff, and whatever population is already present. Five hundred kilograms of oxygen per day. Water recycling. Atmospheric management. Power generation sufficient to maintain Earth-equivalent conditions through a fourteen-day lunar night. The most conservative energy estimate for that scale of facility is several hundred megawatts of continuous output. Solar on the lunar surface is viable during the day cycle. A fourteen-day night requires either massive storage capacity or a primary power source that isn't solar."

"Fission," Briggs said.

"Almost certainly. A reactor of that capacity is not a portable unit. It's a permanent installation. Which means Lunar Base Sanctuary was not built recently. You don't design, manufacture, and install a fission reactor of that scale in the construction window implied by Nova Technologies' public existence. Either the timeline we think we know about this company is wrong, or the construction happened through methods that don't require conventional timelines."

"How long?" Marsh asked.

"If they used conventional construction methods and we simply missed it — which our satellite coverage of the lunar surface suggests is unlikely but not impossible — minimum three to five years. If they used something we don't understand, the timeline is open. There's a third possibility." He hesitated briefly. "The facility predates the company's public identity entirely. Nova Technologies as a visible entity has existed for less than a year."

The room pondered this revelation.

Marsh glanced upward at the ceiling briefly, then returned focus to the table. "What do we do about the people who get selected?"

"Standard debrief request post-return," Calloway said. "Framed as a national security briefing rather than intelligence extraction. Voluntary, with appropriate incentives. We ask what the facility looked like. How large the existing staff population seemed. Whether the infrastructure felt permanent or temporary. Whether the food was grown on-site or shipped. Whether they saw anything that felt like heavy equipment or manufacturing capability."

"Questions a curious person would ask," Osei said.

"Exactly. Nothing that touches the confidentiality agreement. Nothing that looks like what it is. We collect the picture piece by piece from however many citizens are selected and construct the most accurate model we can of what's actually up there."

Marsh nodded deliberately. "And the recruitment itself? Do we issue guidance?"

"We support it," Yuen said immediately. "Publicly and without qualification. We put out a statement today saying the administration welcomes the opportunity for American medical professionals to participate in this historic trial and encourages qualified citizens to apply. We claim the reflected credit before anyone else does. If American staff are selected, we talk about American expertise contributing to the most significant medical trial in history. We stay ahead of the story."

"And if no Americans are selected?"

Silence gripped the room momentarily.

"Then we say nothing and wait for the next announcement," Yuen said. "Which there will be."

***

Over the Atlantic, Britain's response unfolded with the signature Whitehall caution reserved for crises where inaction trumped all alternatives.

A top Foreign Office figure assembled a tight circle in a Thames-viewing conference room. No minutes recorded the session. Conclusions drawn would evade any freedom of information request.

Talks mirrored Washington's path, yet added a vital layer. The NHS faced profound implications from the trial's success. Effective Medical Nanites across tested conditions promised an unbudgeted overhaul for the health service. The recruitment previewed staff-level shifts. Lunar Base Sanctuary returnees from NHS ranks would bring medical insights the system couldn't readily integrate.

"We don't block it," the official declared. "We can't block it and we shouldn't try. What we do is ensure that anyone selected from an NHS institution returns to a formal debrief conducted by people who know what questions to ask. Not intelligence questions. Medical questions. We want to understand the clinical picture as completely as possible."

A voice at the table voiced the unspoken doubt. "Do we think the facility is what the announcements suggest it is?"

The official mulled it over extensively. "I think it's larger than the announcements suggest. I think it's been there longer than we know. And I think the thirty-six people going up there are going to come back with a picture of something that will require us to significantly revise whatever model we currently have."

***

Beijing's State Council mounted the most methodical and shadowy counter.

Scrutiny ignited instants after the announcement hit. By formal briefing time, three tracks hummed: legal feasibility of travel curbs, prediction of applicant doctors, and tech breakdown of Lunar Base Sanctuary clues from public data.

Findings matched Washington and London largely, splitting on one front.

China boasted unrivaled lunar satellite archives beyond America. Review intensified. Any decade-spanning construction left traces there. Detection surged to top priority.

Public release of the recruitment notice proceeded sans state input. No dissuasion for applicants. Logic echoed Washington's—obstruction costs outweighed engagement.

Yet Beijing's debrief blueprint dwarfed Calloway's outline in depth.

***

Worldwide, nations eyed the announcement amid institutional jitters of diverse intensity, yielding familiar response archetypes.

Robust healthcare systems grappled with the same staff exodus woes. Applications poured in. HR scrambled policies. Blocking's image toll loomed starkly negative. Most adopted Washington's stance: vocal backing, covert debrief prep.

Lesser powers, lighter on stakes but heavier on upsides, diverged. Where 15% geo-limits assured slots, the recruitment gleamed as pure boon.

Their healers could lunar-bound. Citizens trial-bound. Big powers' geo-games paled against populace gains from this epochal test.