Chapter Five: Backup Power for 130 Million People

Near dawn, Refraction's new information chamber intercepted an encrypted mission broadcast. Two human nations were fighting along a river border. An upstream treatment plant had been bombed. Downstream, a drug-resistant cholera variant was spreading toward two million people. [THIRD CIVILIZATION MISSION GENERATED.] [OBJECTIVE: CAUSE BOTH BELLIGERENT STATES TO JOINTLY PRODUCE AND SHARE WATER-PURIFICATION TECHNOLOGY.] [FAILURE: EITHER SIDE MONOPOLIZES THE TECHNOLOGY, OR THE AGENT DIRECTLY MANUFACTURES ALL REQUIRED EQUIPMENT.] The western Pacific marker called for the first time. A young woman appeared in a projection like a wall of water. Behind her glittered a city built upon the sea.