After Marcus said that, the room fell quiet again.
Not the awkward kind of silence where people avoided eye contact.
This one felt heavier than that.
The kind where everyone inside the room was thinking about the exact same thing but nobody wanted to be the first to say it aloud.
Outside the administrative building, the sound of rifle fire echoed across the Atlas compound. A burst of shouting followed soon after, mixed with boots pounding against dirt in steady rhythm. Somewhere farther away, an engine roared to life before settling into a loud mechanical hum.
Even indoors, Atlas never truly felt quiet anymore.
The place constantly moved like a living machine.
Soldiers trained outside from sunrise until nightfall. Supply crews pushed carts between warehouses. Trucks came and went through the gates almost every hour. Orders were shouted across the camp so often that they had practically become background noise.
