The Alliance Heartlands stretched from horizon to horizon, a seemingly never-ending line of cityscapes pushing for room on the continent. Somewhere to the south, the city-states became farming-states; massive climate-controlled domes each with their own closed culture, and each of which shipped mind-boggling amounts of food out to the rest of the Alliance to keep the megasociety going. They were, apparently, covered in multi-level fields, as dense in vegetation as the cities were in metal, but Edom R. had a hard time imagining it.

There was a lot of metal in the city.

He stepped off the military helicopter that had brought him to the Heartlands and tried, in vain, to take in the sheer amount of activity going on around him. The heliport was literally buzzing, dozens of different kinds of helicopters constantly taking off and landing in the grid of loading pads. Cargo-copters, government, passenger, emergency... near the back, a massive carrier-copter roared as it rose ponderously into the air, sending waves of air crashing against the safety-shields raised to keep it from interfering with the smaller aircraft. And the people.

Edom had once thought that differentiating people was easy. The undead were pale and bloodless, their identification codes, circles and lines, visibly glowing beneath the skin of their upper arms. The living were similar, but without ID codes and with blood-pink skin.

Not so in the Heartlands.

He could barely process the color and light surrounding him. Law forbid non-medical cybernetic modification on living humans, but it did not forbid modification itself. A woman walked past Edom with shimmering, translucent wings hanging from her bare back like a cape, but they twitched and fluttered as if they were somehow alive. A man boarding nearby had gemstones set into his skin, glittering brilliantly whenever he moved or turned. Even those without dramatic physical-mods wore wildly different kinds of clothing all shining with glowwire, or had haircuts that made male peacocks look plain. Paradoxically, the efforts of every single person to look exotic made them all blend together in one mad vortex of sameness.

Edom closed his eyes, blocked out the astonished curiosity that drew him to examine these Heartlanders in detail, and concentrated on the mission.

Recall to Imptuus Headquarters.

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A grim mission, but it was a mission nonetheless. It ran through his decaying brain, hummed in his digital memory. Distractions might threaten to delay it on the surface level, but there was no disobeying the mission. Even when it ended in... the end.

The living didn't seem to realize this fact. Command had sent two soldiers to escort him to his final destination, though they were far from necessary. Edom knew exactly where IHQ was, because that's where she was. Not even the mysterious controllers monitoring his thoughts and reactions could block an undead's sense of the necromancer who had raised him.

They didn't like that thought. Edom almost smiled, but they could block his smug satisfaction at finding their one weakness. He merely acknowledged the fact and walked to the car the living soldiers had summoned for their use.

The city was reduced to mere lines of bright-and-darkness as the car sped along a computer-controlled lightway. Hours of travel through state-wide raised highways and crowded streets became minutes, a blurring passage that left the living disoriented at best. Edom was enthralled by the process. They didn't have lightways across the sea, in the Farlands - at least not inland - and he felt oddly soothed by the sheer speed of the vehicle.

Blocked thought.

He would never know what had just run through his mind. Something about computers... or vehicles? Ah well, such was unlife.

The driver retook control on the cooldown strip and steered them out onto the highway. A different state, but similar landscapes. Towering skyscrapers and endless buildings, as far as the eye could see. Up ahead, Edom saw the Imptuus building... or, at least, one of them. Are there more then one?

The soldiers didn't say a word throughout the entire car ride. When the driver flashed an entry permit at the back entrance, explained their purpose to the guard at the gate, his voice almost startled Edom.

"Delivering a recalled Ocearius unit. We have an appointment."

That's me. The thought was devoid of any feeling - they'd scrubbed it. Edom felt himself slipping. With every surge of energy through his bloodless body, they were censoring more and more. Why?

In moments after hearing those words, Edom became blank. There were no appropriate reactions to the concepts he was being presented with, so he did not react. He got out of the car, saluted his escort after the tradition of undead-soldier to living-soldier, and walked toward the door the gate-guard had indicated.

She was near. The end was near.

The only thing left to him was surrender.