The Awakening Bureau's emergency response protocol activated at four minutes past the worldwide system notice.
By the time the notification had been on every registered hunter's player panel for twelve minutes, the Bureau's central command in the global administrative district had a full emergency council assembled in the primary analysis chamber. Bureau Director Lan Weiming had been in the middle of a routine quarterly review when his personal alert device produced a sound it had never produced before in twenty-two years of service. He had read the notification twice, forwarded it to three department heads simultaneously, and reached the primary analysis chamber in nine minutes.
The room was already half-full when he arrived.
