The atmosphere in the research team’s conference room was heavy, as still and tense as the calm before a storm.

Everett stood in front of the projection screen, behind which a three-dimensional model of the underground nest slowly rotated. Jerry had spent two months piecing together the complete map—every tunnel, every turn, every vent, marked with perfect clarity. Grey’s lair lay fifteen meters underground, a maze so complex that no ordinary force could breach it.

The research team had built a specialized penetrating guided bomb specifically for Grey’s deep burrow.

“We’ve finalized the theoretical design,” Everett said, switching to the next slide. A slender, cone-shaped bomb appeared on the screen, its specifications listed beside it. “The body uses a high-strength alloy shell, with a penetrating fuse at the front, and terminal positioning corrected by Starlink. The principle is simple: Jerry enters the core nest to confirm the final coordinates. The bomb launches from the platform and locks onto its target via satellite data. Step one: the penetrating warhead activates, burrowing through the soil to the set depth—without detonating. Step two: the main warhead explodes on a delay, creating a powerful shockwave in the confined underground space, equivalent to a small 3.5-magnitude earthquake.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the room.

“As the shockwave travels through the earth, it causes irreversible damage to internal organs. The rats’ hearts, lungs, and livers will rupture, killing them instantly from internal bleeding. No one above ground will hear a thing, and the nest will not collapse visibly. In one instant, every rat will die from organ failure.”

An assistant swallowed hard—not from fear, but pure instinctive reaction.

“What about Jerry?” someone asked.

Everett looked at him, his expression flat, calm as untouched water. “Jerry will be remotely retrieved before detonation. We’ve implanted a mandatory return command in its gear. Thirty minutes before the bomb goes off, the signal activates, and it returns to the surface automatically. No friendly fire.”

He cut the projection and took a sip of water from the table.

“It’s settled.”

Deep in the underground nest, Grey leaned against a dry earthen wall, eyes closed, resting but not sleeping. Jerry curled beside her, nose tucked into the fur along her neck, breathing steady and peaceful.

Grey was not asleep. She thought back to the first time she’d seen Jerry, and sensed something different about him. He carried a strange aura, fitted with tiny devices, moving sharply, his eyes nothing like the wild rats. Grey had only known he was unusual. She’d thought he was beautiful—smooth fur, bright eyes, movements nothing like the clumsy, dull rats in the colony. She thought he was handsome.

Grey had not been without suspicion. At first, she’d only found Jerry strange, even attractive, with his odd equipment. Then she realized he was a bad omen. Everywhere he went, explosions followed. Burrows collapsed. Rats died.

Once, while Jerry slept, she had carefully inspected the strange “decorations” on his body. Jerry said they were trinkets he’d found in the human world. Grey didn’t believe him, but she couldn’t understand what they were. The small devices were fixed tightly to his fur, as if they grew there. Grey gently nipped at one with her teeth, and Jerry jolted awake, staring at her with a nervousness she had never seen before.

“Don’t touch,” Jerry said, his voice trembling. “They’re… important.”

Grey didn’t push. She didn’t want Jerry to think she distrusted him.

She loved him, enough to bury all her doubts.

Later, Jerry left. And the humans closed in.

One day, a deep, low boom rumbled from above.

It was quiet, like someone pounding a giant drum far away, or something deep inside the earth snapping slowly. Grey lifted her head. Before she could react, the ground shook violently. Dirt rained down. Cracks spread across the walls like spiderwebs, alive, stretching outward in every direction.

Grey heard a scream—not her own. Her pups, behind her.

Then everything went silent.

By cruel coincidence, Jerry returned moments later.

Grey turned and saw him.

Jerry huddled in the corner of the tunnel, trembling all over, eyes tearful and bloodshot. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. He watched Grey walking toward him, step by step, closer and closer. He wanted to back away, to run, to hide somewhere he would never have to see her eyes again—but his body would not move.

Grey stopped in front of him and stared.

“Jerry.”

Her voice was soft, hoarse, cold, broken, and final:

“You fool.”

Jerry’s entire body flinched.

“You monster.”

Her voice began to shake.

“Look what you’ve done.”

Grey’s voice finally erupted—like the bombs buried in the earth. All her grief, all her rage, all her despair burst out at once.

“You killed our children.”

Everything he thought human training had destroyed—guilt, shame, regret, self-hatred—roared back to life, cutting his heart to pieces from the inside, like a thousand sharp blades.

“Our children?” Jerry stared in shock.

Grey looked away. She turned back to her pups, gathering them one by one into her arms, just as she had when they were alive. She lowered her head and licked their cold, still bodies slowly, over and over, as if trapped in a dream that would never end.

Jerry watched Grey’s back—small, thin, exhausted. He remembered the first time he saw her: proud, calm, a true queen.

Jerry closed his eyes.

This time, he did not leave.

He stayed. He stayed with Grey, waiting together for death to come.