Chapter 137 - The Map Expands

By afternoon, Atlas Base had stopped treating the hidden settlement as a single target and started treating it as the visible edge of something much larger. The operations center had been reorganized overnight, with long tables pushed together, maps pinned across boards, and every available monitor assigned to a different layer of surveillance. The original settlement remained marked at the center of the largest regional map, but new circles had appeared around it, each one representing distance, possible clan territory, patrol range, and likely resource zones. What had begun as a missing caravan investigation had become a full intelligence operation, and everyone in the room understood the difference.