"If you don't believe me," she said presently, "then answer me this: has the number 514 played into any of your lost cases?"

The atmosphere in the room sharpened perceptibly.

Heth leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. At length he began to speak.

"It's been happening since the beginning," he said. "At first we thought it was localized to a particular place. Our first two cases came from the same barracks. We thought it was something a few of them had seen on joint operations. Some kind of graffiti they'd seen during a traumatic moment on Caldari Prime."

Sarum was staring at him intently.

"Then it started popping up everywhere," Heth continued. "Always the same."

"Blood-red skies, strange beings, and the number 514, often written in blood," said Shakor.

Heth looked at him, eyebrows raised. Roden showed no expression, but his eyes darted back and forth between the two men.

"Exactly that," said Heth.

Empress Sarum nodded.

Before the moment and all its implications were allowed to go any further, Roden spoke.

"What does that prove, though?"

"I beg your pardon, Mister President?" asked Sarum.

"The implants give them strange visions," said Roden. "How do you know for sure that Sleeper consciousness is the culprit, and not some," he made a flippant gesture, "random subroutine implanted as a failsafe by their engineers? For that matter, how do you know this isn't merely a quirk of the technology, soon to be ironed out by engineers? Surely those of us who are old enough GÇö" and here he nodded his head pointedly at Shakor, "GÇöremember the spectacular capsule failures of the Caldari-Gallente War. To my recollection those stories weren't much better."

A dark silhouette came into his field of view. He narrowed his eyes at it, and as it gradually came into focus a sick realization rattled its way down his spine and took hold in his gut.

An armored figure with a matte visor, spread out over the face as if to deny even the existence of a face, stared down at him.

"Evening," he managed to say, through blood and sand and bile. Ocean air had never smelled so fresh.

The figure stood there for a brief while. Small clicking noises could be heard inside its helmet. Then it leveled its weapon at him.

Involuntarily his breath quickened, choked gasps coming in ragged rhythm. He had often wondered what his last words would be; in fact, he had constructed them carefully. He opened his lips to speak.

"Adakul, light of the world..." he began, but got no further.

The figure resumed its search of the surroundings.

The horizon was silent and dark.