“At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew

Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do”

-Bob Dylan

It’s 11:50 AM as rain pours down in the city of Manhattan. The city has been sick for a long time, and now it’s biggest cowards, cheapskates, and crooks sit at the 16th floor of an office building to decide the fates of the faceless masses. Rain seems like a blessing in the age of dusty crops and thirsty children. An age where ignorance and greed were more common than having a safe place to call home. But even the rain of this world has been tainted. Acid rain is all the citizens have to collect. The clock ticks to 11:51. Men sit at a long meeting table, faces deep in thought. Arrowhead water bottles line the seats, presumably brought by the thirty-something year-old gentleman, the youngest out of everyone there, wearing what seems to be three name tags wrapped around his neck all marked "Nestle Customer Representative" He stands at a window, gazing over the city, contemplating. He fiddles with a gold ring on his left pinky finger at the sight of the empty sidewalks that line the city streets. Manhattan hasn’t been the same in the past few years. The older men seem to be focusing on their papers and documents. Some have the expression as if the meeting is a waste of time while others seem deep in contemplation. The clock ticks, 11:55. A man in a black suit stands up from the end of the table and looks at the other men.

"Gentlemen, it seems that we're living off borrowed time at this point to be frank"

"Speak for yourself" another mutters from the corner. He seems uninterested in the conversation at hand. "You all made your choices, don't act like there's much else to be done here. The units will be sent out soon, we'll stay safe and not have to worry about all those damned complaints from the locals"

"These are people's lives you pompous..."

"Don't act like you're any better than me! We all turned this city into what it is now. All we can do is wait. I'm not going to throw my life away in the name of your crooked morals! I know the people below are coming for us now. Whatever we did in the past isn't going to change. It's our skins or theirs at this point!"

Tension rises in the room. After his speech he pulls a satin handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The rest of the men look down. They have no objections to what the man just said. The Nestle representative is still at the window. He turns to take off his name tags drops them on the floor.

He whispers "Not me" before exiting the room.The men notice this act, some chuckle at his naivete after he's made his exit.

The man at the end of the table laughs to himself: "Sure kid"

The clock strikes noon. No more words are uttered that day between the businessmen. Rain continues to beat down on the city of Manhattan, and it seems that the city grows even more quiet.

Centuries have passed since these men made their choices. To think that the rapid progress of humanity could be toppled by its very own greed. They started building their empire: their cities, their monuments.. In such a short time they were forging grand projects that would surely outlive them. But as aspirations and goals grew higher and more lofty, the costs of their efforts would soar. The sky’s natural, blue hue would soon be replaced by a brown haze of factory smoke. They said it was necessary if humanity was ever to reach newer heights. The water would run dry, but they said that it was only for the chosen. After all, they were the ones lifting up society with all their innovations. They would take over the apartments, the highrises, the projects, claiming that the land was needed. It was upon which the future of humanity would be built. But the fog soon cleared among the minds of the people. It was evident that elevating the state of humanity was never their goal. But the money was moved, the last checks finally cashed in as the world found out too late. But the rest was forgotten. Only the dunes remain. Sand and dust covering the rubble of a once proud society. Every once in a while, the winds clear some sand from the surface of the dunes, uncovering relics from the last civilization. After centuries of burial, another relic from the lost world comes to the surface. A porcelain hand reaches to through the sand. The hand starts to dig itself out as a crack in the object's hand reveals a metal skeleton underneath the porcelain. The rest of the  arm emerges from the sand soon after. As it rises from the sand, a rifle seems built into the robot's left forearm before shifting its mechanisms to form a complete hand. The arm moves with the speed and power of a jackhammer to scrape away any sand encasing the rest of the being. An orange light begins to slowly appear through a light screen of sand. The light flashes violently as the being stands up for the first time in centuries. Sand sifts through the cracks of the automaton's porcelain armor. Its lower torso pales in comparison to the heavy and broad arms firmly mounted upon its shoulders. His facial complexion looks determined, thoughtful, or just about as determined and thoughtful as a robot can look. The golem has a marking down the back of his neck. More information about this creature is revealed as the sand clears up from the area: "Plato, Mk. I, 'To Protect and Serve'" That must have been his mission.

"Progress...checking..." uttered the golem, his voice had the timbre of that of a war veteran. Scanning his surroundings, it seems no living creatures were there to answer his questions. Only the dunes, the destroyed skyscrapers, the skeletons deep under the salt-caked earth remained to tell him the status of his mission. He takes steps out of the pit of sand, trying to find something that might lead him in the right direction. He scans the surrounding area once more and pauses. The robot lets out a deep sigh and takes a few moments to think, to calculate. One leg moves in front of the other again and again. The porcelain of his lower body seems heavily damaged, but his internal skeleton seems as strong as ever. The sun darts in and out of the sky as he journeys through the land. He could have been walking for days, months, or even years since his resurrection, time is void of meaning in the barrens of the future. The earth begins to change as he finds land that seems somewhat out of the reach of the dunes, as if the area was spared from the worst of time's treatment. Plato takes note of the last interesting things that may help him to piece together the past. A dried out ocean, copper remains of an old statue of some sort, broken portions of skyscrapers poke out from sand as he walks on. He soon finds that the remains of skyscrapers would soon be replaced with the crushed wreckage of homes, schools, and playgrounds. This area is different from the rest of the sprawling desert. The people who once lived in those streets are but skulls now. Paying no heed to the dead of the old world, a skull gets crushed between the ground and Plato's thousand pound mechanical boot. "Veidt Steelworks" is engraved into the boot’s underside, the last thing seen by the human skull before its brittle collapse between the old pavement. The search for answers continues. Miles pass before the answers of the old world finally reveal themselves. Plato stops after his nearly infinite-mile pilgrimage before what seems to be an empty lot.  Further analysis of the area reveals a staircase. Countless stairs guarded the vault: The most exclusive millionaires club in all the world miles below the surface. Where a large sum of money could buy a few months of sanity before the terrors of the outside world that they created seeped in. But few had the resources to make it inside in time. They were protected by their wall of wealth, while the others who couldn't afford their luxuries were offered the cold truth of reality in the form of lead released in short bursts by robots meant simply to protect and serve. But there remains no time to weep over the lives faceless masses. Not in the dunes.