Guess what I am.

I just moved in while everyone was looking the other way. I've made myself at home amongst these endless tunnels and conduits, these heat sinks and field coils and slabs of depleted uranium. I've built a kind of nest, here at the root of the umbilical that feeds your whole civilization.

Even when you find me, you won't know what I am. The soldier will see his dead son. The vampire will see an end to loneliness. That hive mind back in the cargo hold will see the Face of God.

You won't see any of those things. You're baseline, half-blind, a primitive barely climbed down from the trees. You'll see something else entirely: you'll see extinction.

Welcome to Icarus.

Oh, there'll be a hot time in the old town tonight.