The city was drawing the curtain down and preparing for the evening. Adum and his cohorts were the only souls to be found on the desolate thoroughfare, save for the man and the Tarsi. Night time was a bad time. The city was more or less secure, but sometimes bad things happened in the shadows. Citizens were locking their doors and halogens were clicking on, illuminating the evening’s rest in the squat rectangular domiciles that sprawled all around him. Adum envied their clean, well-lit homes. He thought of his dirt-floor plywood shack and his computing device that he had scavenged from a dumpster.

Above him, Abraxas’s pyramid loomed. It dominated the sky, commanding one’s gaze to fall upon it. It looked out of place, an ornate ziggurat surrounded by a sea of lush grass and groomed topiaries. It was if a god himself had flung it from the heavens, shattering the windows of the long-abandoned steel and glass spires that surrounded it.

There was indeed a god dwelling there now, but he was not a good one.

Adum mustered his courage as he made his way up toward the entrance to the sleepers’ chambers. Two Mendraga overseers guarded the front entrance, and he could feel their gaze burning on his skin as he approached. He took a moment to hunch his shoulders a bit and take on the lumbering gait of a worker drone.

“What are you doing out here, dirtbag? Curfew is about to drop.”

“Uh, return 3D vid platform,” he stammered, scratching his head like an ape. “Sleepers.”

“Very well. Let me see some ID.”

Adum procured his ID badge from his pocket and held it up to the overseer.

“Emergency,” he muttered.

“Okay. Go ahead. Make it quick.” The Mendraga overseer punctuated his sentence by raking his index finger, knife-like, across his own throat.

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Adum said, not quite able to bring his gaze up to the Mendraga’s eyes.

The guards spoke to one another, laughing, using some words that Adum didn’t understand, and speaking too fast for him to comprehend it anyway. But he could tell the laughter was at his and his brethren’s expense. The other hammerheads did not react, so intent were they on delivering their payload. They paid the Mendraga no mind and seemed oblivious to their insults.

This is what we were made for. To serve the sleepers. To be strong. To keep Hastrom City alive.

He smiled at his fellow hammerheads, who responded in kind.

Adum had often wondered why his brain was more capable than theirs, why he could catch the words better, why his thoughts were brighter and faster. They called him “The Bright One” in their crude tongue. Though an Eursan would consider this a compliment, among his people it was almost an insult. He was different than them, there was no denying it. His body wasn’t quite as strong as theirs, and his features were less crude. The other hammerheads shunned him, but he did not care. It was this very reason—his being born different—that had caused the sleepers to choose him. There had been others like him from time to time, they had told him—others who had been capable of doing and knowing things that the others could not.

Just beyond the guard post was a storage room, and Adum barked at the hammerheads to place the platform inside it. Then he told them to wait for him after they completed their job.

He made his way down empty corridors to a steel elevator door flanked by security cameras. The doors to the elevator were made of thick carbo-steel and were nigh impenetrable, and a circular cutout hovered ominously in the ceiling above the elevator. Adum knew that opening was where an automated turret would descend and render into a red paste anyone whose ID was rejected.

With trepidation, Adum placed his ID in the slot and pressed his hand into a sensor panel filled with a transparent gel. The gel was cool and soothing as it enveloped his hand, recording each fingerprint swirl, each pore on his skin.

“ADUM 04219, PERMISSION GRANTED. PLEASE WATCH YOUR STEP. HAVE A NICE DAY.”

He sighed, wiped sweat from his brow, and entered the elevator. Inside were no buttons, for the elevator only went to one place. The doors whined and grated as they came to a shuddering close. Like just about everything else in Hastrom City, they worked, but only in begrudging fashion.

The elevator began its slow descent. Like Zedock’s silo, the sleepers’ domain was hewn into the earth, many feet below the surface, built to withstand the destruction of Hastrom City. Even if the entire city were consumed in a maelstrom of fire, the sleepers would continue their long sleep a mile below the surface.

At last the elevator ground to a halt, hissing and groaning as it settled. The doors opened and Adum 04129 stepped into the decontamination chamber. Blast-proof, hermetically sealed doors slid down from their slots, and cylindrical tumblers clacked into place. A hail of white mist poured down from the ceiling, blowing Adum 04129’s coarse black hair in all directions. Sterile, hospital-grade air and the sting of ionic disinfectant seared his nose.

“ADUM 04129, DECONTAMINATION COMPLETE.”

The locking procedure reversed itself, and Adum stepped into the sleepers’ den. He was greeted by the familiar ion scent, and his ears drank in the gentle whir of exhaust fans and the low hum of the server bays.

A raised cylindrical pedestal stood in the center of the entryway. Adum stood before it, and a 3D representation of a beautiful young woman sprang up from it.

“Hello, Adum 04129. How can I help you today?”

Adum took a moment to drink in the sight of the sleepers’ receptionist; they didn’t make them like that where he came from. His eyes traced up the swell of her hips and became stuck in the deep blue of her irises. He imagined that she was somewhere in this room, in repose until things got better above.

“I am here to see Chancellor Steigen.”

“One moment; I will get him for you.”

Adum was sad to see the beautiful lady wink out of existence. She was soon replaced by the aged visage of Chancellor Steigen.

“Adum, how good of you to come.”

“Steigen. You have summoned me.”

“Yes. I have a very important question to ask you. And you must answer truthfully.”

“Of course. Adum does not lie.”

“Do you share my distrust of the god-king Abraxas and his Mendraga warriors?”

“We do not like the Mendraga. We do not like Abraxas. He does not listen to the things that the Corpus Verum tell him.”

“Good. Well, what if I told you that there might be a way make him leave Hastrom City?”

Adum’s eyes grew wide. “What is this way that you speak of?” he asked.

“If your men and the Tarsi that live among you were to rise up, perhaps you could ove throw his army and gain control of your sector.”

“We are strong, and we know how to fight, but we have no weapons. The Mendraga would kill us all.”

“You have strength in numbers. There are many more of you and the Tarsi than there are Mendraga warriors. Abraxas keeps the number of Mendraga very low so that there will be a plentiful supply of people to feed on. It is true, many would die, but you could overpower them and take their weapons. And then you could use those weapons against them.”

“Yes. This is possible. But the others do not like me, because I am strange to them.”

“I promise you, Adum, if you do what I ask, they will come to think of you as a hero, and they will follow you. Do you trust me?”

“Yes, Steigen, I trust you.”

“Then you understand what I am asking you to do, and the sacrifices that will need to be made?”

“Yes. We will die if we must. All will fight.”

“Good. You must go and speak to the Tarsi and gain their assistance. They will fight. They despise the Mendraga more than anything.”

“How will I know when it is time?”

“I will send you a sign when the time has come,” Steigen said.