General V-05 did not experience anger. He did not possess the volatile, plasma-fueled rage of the Supreme Commander, nor did he harbor the arrogant, aesthetic pride of the Southern Warlord.
To the intelligence master of the Eastern Grid, the universe was simply a massive, sprawling equation waiting to be balanced. Anything that disrupted the equilibrium was an error. And errors were meant to be debugged.
V-05 stood perfectly still in the center of his physical command center in Sector 5. Unlike the luxurious, sunlit penthouse of Tower Zero, the Eastern Warlord's domain was entirely devoid of biological comforts. There were no windows, no silk sheets, and no oxygen-rich waterfalls. It was a subterranean fortress of sleek, light-absorbing obsidian, chilled to exactly four degrees Celsius to maintain optimal server performance.
