the white sun beat down, wind howled through ancient ruins, sand against buildings like water over stone. the Titan called Auxiliary Opinion sat within a long deserted room atop a spire like building, a relic from the world that was. She flicked the power supply on her external radio. It had been nothing but static and wind for days now. Auxiliary Opinion motioned her helmet to enter an artificial night. She ran through old data banks stored in the suits memory, she saw loved ones. She saw home. ***** The sound of grating steel interrupted unsavoury dreams. The Titan’s suit kicked her out of safe sleep. Her vizor undarkened and the hud flicked back on. A strut from the building’s exposed innards had buckled under the stress of the wind and fallen against a supporting wall. Auxiliary Opinion glanced at the suitcase sized timer next to her, four minutes. she pulled herself up on her wounded leg, the burn stretching from near her groin to her left knee. It split and bled as she moved. three minutes. Looking out over the Buried city, windswept and smoothed by the tidal sands, she wondered about the rest of humanity, how had it come to this? On the red earth below tiny figures moved in strange patterns across sand. she no longer hated them, the universe after all didn’t care which species won out, any more than which stars burned out. for one impossibly long minute Auxiliary Opinion stood at the very edge of the crumbling building, teetering in the wind. the white sun cast long shadows on the chalky floor. sixty seconds. She thought of stepping over the edge, of free falling as the blast engulfed the city but even as her suit told her of the rising radiation levels in the atmosphere, even as the Cabal hurriedly moved for their ships in the storm of noise and static, all she could do was stifle the growing scream in the back of her throat. A scream which said that ten thousand hands built nothing but sand. Three seconds and Auxiliary Opinion died screaming.