The cursor on Dr. Lira Vales's monitor blinked with the rhythmic, agonizing pulse of a ticking clock. Outside her office window, the sky over the coastal municipality was already bruising into a deep, sickly purple. Super Typhoon Kael was forty-eight hours away, and according to the mathematical models rendering on her screen, the city's brand-new pride and joy, the Horizon Seawall, was going to kill them all.