The cadaver opens his eyes to the sound of music. Dissonant, atonal — dislocated pings and chimes and throbbing lows. The chaos of it pushes his brain to create order, the thing he prizes above all else. Slowly, it restores to him his sense of self. The fog of his long sleep lifts. He looks around. The same ceiling of gray metal, the same squares of light illuminating the small chamber. His faceless robot attendants move in slow concert, disconnecting him from the machines around him with graceful precision. He is not, in fact, a corpse — though he has lived like one for the last forty-three years. Every six months or so, he will rise and hobble to the small desk in the corner of the room, where he will write — long hand — the history of his life and the fall of the world he once knew, once dominated. Even more rarely, he will have his attendants wheel him to Central Control, where he will peer into the monitors that circle the huge round table, trying to glean what passes in the world above. They are mostly blind, the stations they connect to robbed of parts and power, but a few still function. Like a peeping tom, he spies on the chaos and suffering of the stragglers who fight for survival among the ruins. Mostly, he sleeps, dreaming uneasily — sometimes of his wife and daughter, but more often of endless processions of weapons and fevered meetings with white-faced men over deployments and supply lines. The dizzying, final crash of all he loved. As he dresses — slowly, stiffly — his yellowed eyes fix on the tattered flag secured to the wall of his chamber. It once flew outside the New States Department of War. His true home. What was the name of that young man who retrieved it? Prior? Priker? He can’t remember. He had praised the boy’s bravery in the frenzy of the retreat. Not to his face — the poor kid had been vaporized along with the rest of the rear detachment — but in his mind, he paid him what honor he could. A door slides open, and another cadaver shuffles into the room — gray and gaunt, sunken into a uniform now several sizes too large. The corpses eye one another across the room. “Good morning, Cragg,” says the first. “Good morning, Prendergast,” the newcomer responds. “Are the others awakened?” “All except Branford. He’s dead.” “I’m not surprised. He was always weak. No matter. Tell them to assemble in Central Control. I’ll be with you shortly. We have much to discuss. It is time.” Cragg nods and leaves without a word. Oliver Prendergast, Director of Advanced Weaponry for the New States of America, pulls the knot tight on his red tie. He looks at the flag on the wall. “It’s never too late, my girl,” he says. “To bring you back.”