Manus and Calhoun were called in during the daylight shift to deal with a massive influx of messages. Protocol called for all soldiers to send suspicious missives to Control, and so they had; all four towers were under assail from the sheer amount of reports.

Tower 2 received close to two hundred reports from confused soldiers. The message was the same in each report.

"PhAEtoN WALKs, toWEr 32 is DEAD. sEND BrADLEy."

Operating annotations were simple, and Calhoun found himself logging the reports into the Archive without reading them due to the large amount of "What does this mean?" notes.

Bradley's notes indicated a desire to track the new threat with deadly force, and asked to be ordered out. General Mercado replied that Omega was sufficient to deal with the terrorist, and kept Bradley on the border near Coldwater.

Calhoun wondered what was going on.

Two days later, Tower 38 in Pontiac went down. Another influx of reports, all with the same message. "PhAEtoN WALKs, toWEr 38 is DEAD. sEND BrADLEy."

And again, the very next day, from Bloomfield. Tower 37 was torn apart. The investigation by Omega reported that the brutality only increased as the terrorist hit each tower; in this case, the operators had been partially skinned and one was still alive, hung on a hook in the ceiling, screaming about Phaeton and the defiled as he bled onto the tiles.

Omega tracked the culprit as far as the 696, the highway north of Detroit, but the trail grew cold. They were baffled as to how the terrorist managed to stay hidden so well in such a heavily populated area. It didn't help that about five reports of a Phaeton sighting were coming into Tower 2 every hour, from as far south as Monroe to as far north as Flint.

Several days passed and the frightened people of the surrounding area came into Detroit, either seeking protection or re-conditioning. The palpable terror of Phaeton walking the wastes was enough for some people to lose their heads. Calhoun marked the idea in his head, and wondered how to produce a like result for himself.

Plymouth was next. After the lull, it was easy for some to think that it wouldn't happen again, and this time it was in broad daylight in front of several witnesses that the tower exploded. What was left was described as a flesh-like slurry of bone and guts splattered at least fifty feet from the tower. Manus visibly paled at the report, and noted that the message was slightly different this time:

"PhAEtoN WALKs, toWEr 35 is DEAD. sEND BrADLEy or ArBor is NExt."

Maybe, Calhoun thought, just maybe, there was still a chance.

Adam sat on his glass throne lazily kicking a leg into the back of his latest acquisition, watching her take the minor abuse without complaint. But then, she really couldn't complain, could she?

He laughed to himself, amused. Echo repeated it and looked up to him with her beautiful green eyes. He loved those eyes, and he would forever see Aysha in her, which hurt his heart. But he wasn't some weakling, and he took that pain, and made it his. This was his life, his purpose. Detroit was his intimate love letter to the world, his promise to the people who dared to writhe like worms on his hook, until he threw them into the fishing hole.

It was hilarious, that Phaeton wouldn't eat this young woman.

He pressed his foot into her back hard, pushing her forward. She put up a passive resistance, just enough to avoid falling over, but did not move out of the path. Just as he'd directed. He tittered. Truly, the infrasonic dampener was a blessing from God!

But a sharp pain, right into his core. How dare Aysha run away from him, from his glory in the center of Detroit, only to die in the wastes like some savage? How dare she steal from him, take his research―her research too, but he was the lead scientist, he always had been, hadn't he?―and lose it out in that atomic wilderness that made up the world? The only dependable place for people like himself and her was Detroit, where they had their home before the War, where they had―

He paused for a moment. Memories weren't as fluid as they used to be, more like a crackling fire. If he thought too much about one thing, it was consumed in his mind like a piece of paper with words on, gone forever to the madness that he felt building up.

Well, no matter. He had his toy, now, and it worked just fine once he ripped it apart and replaced the casing. It fit snugly with the other piece, as well. But he had no use for the old ISD, so he'd destroyed it. The proper ISD was in his hands.

And now... Now he had his Eve, and wasn't she pretty! She didn't have the beauty of Aysha, or the glowing eyes of his Echo, but her skin was truly something else. Other than minor scarring on her back, she was pristine to his touch. He hadn't abused the privilege, yet. He might. He might.

She stared forward with eyes that hazed, a deep brown that reminded him of chocolate bars and brown labradors. Hadn't he and Aysha had a pretty dog like that? He couldn't recall. It might have been that Aysha had an allergy to dogs, for all he could remember about the woman. Dead in a ditch outside Grayling, now, according to his Eve.

He ran his eyes over the girl's back, and ordered her to turn around. She complied, and he cupped those flawless cheeks in his withered hands, felt the sweat that stuck to her skin, wondered at the feeling. It had been so long since he'd had skin, and Aysha's skin had never looked as good as this girl did. He stroked her cheeks in the manner of a fond uncle, pinching and grinning in memory.

Echo mewed like a cat. Adam turned to her, pushing Eve back roughly. Was his Echo jealous? He patted her head and dangled a hand in front of her, and she rubbed against him like a cat. How silly. She was too young to properly express herself, he knew. She hadn't had the social experience that Eve had, growing up with others who would have talked to her.

An idea formed in his mind. "Eve," he directed. "Tell Echo a story. A fairy-tale or something like that. I don't know... The Boy Who Cried Wolf."

Eve turned her head and focused on the little girl, then smiled faintly. She began to speak, and he listened to her, idly. It wasn't until she was halfway through the story that he appreciated she had a natural talent for storytelling.

How wonderful, he thought. At least he wouldn't be bored while the renovations to the Concourse were going on.